King and Lionheart
by Kishire
Summary: Wounded and chased out of Hueco Mundo after rebelling against Aizen, Grimmjow finds himself a quiet spot in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in Karakura Town to recover. He didn't expect anyone to find him, let alone an eight year old brat with orange hair who asks too many questions and attaches himself to the former Sexta like super-glue. (Canonic AU, eventual GrimmIchi)
1. ARRANCAR

**Note: **This will be a canonic AU in which the timelines are a bit mixed up and other canon facts are altered. I don't want to give too much away since it's all plot-related and it'll be cleared up in the course of the story (which will take place over a span of 12 years), so for now, if the summary was enough to pique your interest, welcome to the story and I hope you'll enjoy! Please leave a review if you can! Also, rating will change to M in the future, so there's that ;)

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><p><strong>I: ARRANCAR<strong>

"Oi, come back here, freak!"

He runs as fast as his small feet can carry him, the sounds of hollering from his pursuers following him closely. Slipping into an alleyway, he nearly trips over a trash can but manages to keep on running, lungs burning in his chest and sweat dripping from his forehead.

"Ha, look at him run, what a wimp!"

If they catch him, he'll come home with more than a few bruises this time. Mrs. Fukui will yell at him for starting a fight without listening to his side of the story and Mr. Fukui will definitely send him up to his room without dinner as punishment. His adoptive parents hate it when he causes trouble for them—or at least, that's how they see it.

Ichigo's parents died when he was very young. He barely has any memories left of them, but he knows little bits and pieces from what Mrs. Fukui told him. In one bout of anger, she mentioned that her mother had been pregnant when she died in the car accident. Ichigo often wonders what it would've been like to have a sibling, a younger brother or sister to take care of.

Sometimes he thinks it would've been much better if he'd had an older brother, though. If he had a strong older brother, maybe the other kids in the neighborhood wouldn't bully him as much as they do. They all know he's adopted; that and his bright orange hair have turned him into a target for ridicule.

Legs starting to ache, he takes a turn and finds himself standing in front of a dead-end. The sound of multiple footsteps is nearing closer fast.

"Where did that freak go?"

"Come on, I think he went this way!"

Ichigo is completely out of breath, but a sense of panic propels him to take action. He spots a door on the left side of the dead-end alley, and in desperation he runs to it, praying that it isn't locked.

Lady Fortuna is on his side as the heavy door opens quietly, and he slips inside, shutting it quickly and looking around. The building he's in is devoid of any furniture. Some of the windows are cracked or missing entirely, while the floorboards look old and dusty. There's no light, but the sunshine from outside illuminates the interior enough for him to make out his surroundings.

Panting and wiping the sweat off his forehead, he distances himself from the door as he hears his bullies run past the dead-end. He doesn't feel like it would be safe to go outside yet.

Walking around, he notices there aren't any rooms in the building, just giant, empty spaces. It looks to be an old warehouse of some sort. Taking a deep breath, the young boy decides to explore. Maybe he can make this a permanent hide-out. It's close to his house, and it would make a nice hiding spot for whenever the other kids go after him again.

The ground floor has nothing of interest to offer him, so he heads to the stairs. The second he goes a step up, there's like a sudden wind coming from the upper floor that blows in his face. Rather, it's not wind exactly. It's a sort of energy.

Ichigo, aside from being adopted and having orange hair, has another quality that separates him from his peers. He can see and talk to ghosts. He's never told anyone else this, because there's no one who would believe him. Some kids already think he's crazy because he talks to the ghosts often. Most of them are very friendly, though they never stay for long.

He's felt this type of energy before. It's similar to that of the spirits he encounters wandering around the city, but it's so heavy that it's making it hard to breathe. There's something about it that makes a chill run down his spine, giving him goose bumps all over. A spirit is definitely up there, but it might not be a friendly spirit.

"Hello?" he calls hesitantly, still frozen at the bottom of the stairs. He receives no reply, but the thick energy seems to pull back a bit. He should probably leave, but it's the first time he's felt a presence like this, so he can't help his curiosity.

Taking another step, he pauses cautiously. When nothing happens, he proceeds up the stairs, eyes wide as they look over his surroundings.

It's just as empty as the ground floor. He finds a few empty cardboard boxes in the corner of a small room, and a few long boards of wood and steel pipes, but nothing aside from that. The presence is definitely around here somewhere—maybe further up?

The third floor yields the same results as the second, but the thick energy now feels nearly suffocating. Ichigo tries controlling his breathing, lingering a bit as he tries getting used to the sensation. Stubborn in finding out the cause of it, he heads up to the uppermost floor.

This floor has several rooms, unlike the first three. It looks like it used to be an office of some sort, if the remnants of an old desk and the broken pieces of an old chair tell him anything. He walks from room to room, heart beating faster and faster as he knows he's close to finding the spirit lingering here.

Walking through a long hallway, he checks all the rooms, until he ends up at the last one on the right. His hand is shaking lightly, the energy radiating from the room giving him a mild headache. He should turn around and leave. Nothing good can be behind that door, but he can't help himself. He's come this far already, so he might as well.

Tiny hand on the doorknob, he pushes it open.

The sunlight bursting through the glassless windows here is the brightest, engulfing nearly the entire space in it. Sitting against the wall on the left side, just out of the reach of the light and in the comfort of shadows, is a man unlike any Ichigo has ever seen before.

The shock of wild blue hair and odd bone-shaped mask on his jaw are the first things he notices. His clothes are incredibly strange, his top an open white jacket revealing the muscles lined down his torso and his bottom a white hakama with a black sash.

The man's eyes are initially closed, but when he opens them they shift to Ichigo, who is frozen in the door way. They are even bluer than his hair, with green marks in the corners, half-lidded as short eyebrows pull down into a slight frown above them.

"Um," Ichigo swallows thickly, heartbeat pounding against his ribs as he stares at the man caught between shock and fear. _This is a predator_, his instincts scream at him. _Run, run now, hurry, down the stairs, and don't look back. _"H-hello."

He's certainly not just any spirit. The ones Ichigo has seen always have a sort of transparency about them, but this man looks completely solid.

The man's eyes are still fixed on him, and he is unmoving, a breeze from outside swaying the few locks of hair that are hanging down his forehead. Ichigo waits for a reply, and dares not to take his eyes off the man, afraid he might attack him or something when he's not looking. He doesn't know where this fear comes from, but it's just there, and he can't ignore it.

"You can see me?" the man says in a low tone, his voice rough and a deep baritone.

Ichigo nods shakily. "Are you… are you some sorta spirit?"

The man turns his head away and closes his eyes, leaning his head back. "Go away, kid."

It is only then that Ichigo notices that one of the man's hands has been holding a spot on his abdomen—there's blood leaking down from his left side, and his arms are covered in minor cuts and bruises and dirt.

"Are you injured, mister?" Ichigo pushes on bravely. "I can help."

The man cracks one eye open at that, and he looks annoyed. "Didn't you hear me the first time? _Piss off_." He makes a gesture with his free hand, as if he's trying to brush away a mosquito.

"But…" Ichigo purses his lips, frowning deeply. "I can get you water, and… and some bandages."

At this the man focuses his full attention on Ichigo again, eyes now completely open and alert. His gaze is so intense that the boy has to break eye-contact, getting fidgety as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

"Why would you wanna help me?"

Ichigo looks up at this, blinking confusedly. "Because you're hurt."

The man narrows his eyes slightly, brows furrowing. "Do you even know what I am, kid?"

"A spirit, right?"

He snorts, looking away with a shake of his head, muttering something to himself about 'dumbass humans'. "Alright, if you wanna help, then help."

Ichigo relaxes at that, grinning happily. He likes helping others when he can—it proves Mrs. Fukui wrong every time she calls him 'useless'. He's not useless at all if he can help even one person.

"Okay, I'll be right back! Don't go anywhere!"

He turns around and hurries through the corridor, heading to the stairs and getting down to ground floor. He has enough money on him to buy a bottle of water and some bandages. His adoptive parents rarely buy him things, they just hand him the money and tell him to buy it himself. He's already nine years old so it's not a problem for him, but it's just one of the many things that makes him feel as if he has no family. As if he's all alone.

Buying the items the injured spirit needs takes only a few minutes, and when he returns he's relieved to see that the man hasn't moved. He approaches him a bit hesitantly, and though he's getting used to the eerie energy the man puts out, getting closer to him makes him nervous, and he soon returns to lingering near the doorway as soon as he handed the items over.

He watches the spirit splash a bit of the water in his face before taking a few big gulps and using the rest of it to clean the dirt and dried blood off himself. Taking his hand off his wound, Ichigo catches a glimpse of it and it makes him cringe—a large cut that looks pretty deep right below his ribs, still bleeding.

"Hey, mister," Ichigo asks quietly, "what did you get that cut from?"

"Who."

"Huh?"

The man starts wrapping the bandage around the cut, tying it around his waist. "Who did I get the cut from, not what." When he's leaning forward as he bandages himself, Ichigo catches a glimpse of something that makes his jaw drop and forget completely about the man's correction.

There's a large hole, in the middle of the man's abs.

"Woah!" Ichigo takes a few steps forward unthinkingly, trying to get a better view of the perfectly round hole that's covered in part by the man's black sash. "Hey, mister, you have a giant hole in your stomach, you know!"

"Hadn't noticed." the man replies wryly, continuing his bandaging and finishing it within a few seconds.

"Doesn't that hurt?!"

"No." The man looks at his empty water bottle and scowls. "I need more water."

"Oh," Ichigo takes the few coins he has left out of his pocket. "I don't have enough money, though."

"Che, useless." the man mutters, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall, closing his eyes as if he's about to take a nap. The comment makes Ichigo's fuse go off instantly, reminded sharply of yesterday, when Mrs. Fukui threw the word around after he got a C on a math test, locking him up in his room after her tirade.

"I'm not useless!" he snaps, balling his fists. "I got you bandages and everything! Show a little gratitude, shitty old man!"

The man's eyebrows twitch, and his eyes slide open, the predatory look lurking underneath the lazy façade making Ichigo's anger disappear instantly.

"Kid," the spirit says, and suddenly it's hard to breathe and his knees shake with a weight pressing down on him, crushing against his bones. It's as if gravity has shifted, pulling him down to earth, and he nearly falls to his knees. "Just a word of advice; be careful who you talk back to."

The pressure disappears and Ichigo gasps, small body quivering and sweat rolling down the back of his neck. He looks up to the spirit, whose expression is completely even, eyes watching him intently.

"Wh-who… what are you?" Ichigo asks, voice shaky.

"An Arrancar."

"What's that?"

The man's lips twist and a wild grin contorts his features, eyes gleaming madly like that of an insane person. "A monster that eats the souls of small children."

Ichigo goes pale, a whimper escaping his throat as he backs away and trips over his own feet. The spirit cackles, the dangerous air around him disappearing. Realizing it was probably a joke, Ichigo grits his teeth and fumes, getting up on his feet.

"That's not funny!"

"Says you," the man scoffs, a lingering grin on his features.

Ichigo crosses his arms and glowers as hard as he can, but the man ignores him, turning his head away and looking out the window instead.

"Hey, old man," the boy asks, a question occurring to him. "If you're a spirit, does that mean you died here?" Usually spirits either linger around their graves or the places where they died. Ichigo figures he must've died in the warehouse then.

"No," the spirit replies without looking at him. "I'm not an ordinary spirit, kid."

"Yeah, you're an Arrancar, but what does that mean?"

The man doesn't say anything for a while, and Ichigo glances down at his bandages, spotting the blood starting to leak through it. "Means I ain't supposed to be on earth. I already passed onto the other side."

Ichigo frowns slightly. "So you went to heaven, or something? And then you came back?"

"Wouldn't call it heaven."

"Then what is it?"

The man doesn't reply and Ichigo starts feeling a bit more courageous now. The man is scary, but he doesn't seem to have any intention on hurting him. He takes a few steps into the room, and sits down across from the man, earning a brief glance.

Ichigo stares at him for a moment. "Why's your hair blue?"

"Why's your hair orange?" the spirit counters dryly.

The boy pouts. "What's with that mask? Halloween was two weeks ago."

"I superglued it onto my face and now I can't get it off."

Ichigo almost believes him until the man snickers at his dumbfounded expression. What a jerk.

"How do you eat with that hole in your stomach?" he continues his inquiries, curious about this odd person in front of him.

"I don't eat human food."

"What kinda food do you eat?"

"Souls."

Ichigo rolls his eyes, assuming it is another one of the spirit's lame jokes and shifts on the floor, sitting cross-legged with his hands on his knees. "My name is Ichigo, by the way. Ichigo Kurosaki. What's yours?"

As the spirit gazes at him, Ichigo is strongly reminded of the neighbor's cat that always sleeps on the windowsills. The spirit has the same kind of lazy posture. He seems to consider the boy's question for quite a while, before eventually responding. "Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez."

"Grimm… jow?" Ichigo smirks. "That's funny name."

At this the spirit leans his head back again, eyes aimed up to the ceiling. "Shouldn't you be going back home, kid?"

Ichigo is still at this, his silence noticed by Grimmjow who raises his eyebrows slightly. The boy shrugs, and looks away—it's then that he notices the sword leaning against the wall on the right.

"Is that your sword?" he asks, dodging the question. He doesn't really have a home. Just a house where he sleeps and eats and happens to share with two adults. He reaches out to touch it, when a wave of energy hits him again and nearly blows him back.

"Don't touch it." Grimmjow says, his voice barely above a growl. Ichigo instantly pulls his hand back, as if burned.

"S-sorry," He stares down at his lap. "I've just never seen a real one up close before."

"Get your own when you're strong enough." Grimmjow replies matter-of-factly and somewhat disinterested, glancing down at his bandages and carefully feeling around the wound.

"Do you fight with it a lot?"

"All the time."

"Who do you fight?"

Grimmjow looks down at him. "Anyone."

"Why?"

The spirit gets impatient. "Shut up, you're giving me a headache."

"I'm gonna learn how to fight," Ichigo starts, babbling as kids often do. "Then no one will mess with me anymore and I won't have to run from anyone. I'll protect myself and my friends from those stupid jerks."

Grimmjow doesn't respond, too busy taking off his bandages.

"Hey, you're not supposed to do that, you've only had it on for like five—" Ichigo stops talking when the wound is revealed and it looks like it has closed up, no longer bleeding. "Oh. That was fast."

"Fight to win, kid." Grimmjow says, tossing aside the bloodied bandages. "Not to survive."

Ichigo frowns slightly as he thinks about it. Fighting to win? Initially he just thought about self-defense, but fighting to win _does _sound more appealing when he imagines his tormentors being the ones that are beat up for once.

Grimmjow's back to having his eyes closed, arms now folded across his chest. Ichigo doesn't know what to think of the man, but he's certainly the most interesting spirit the boy has come across yet.

"Are you sleeping?"

"…"

"Hey, Grimmjow?"

"…"

"Shitty old man?"

A burst of energy hits him again, but this one isn't as harsh as the other two were. It throws him back a little. Grimmjow doesn't open his eyes as he replies.

"Go home, brat."

"Don't wanna." Ichigo replies with a pout, pulling up his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around his legs. "It's no fun at home. Hey, Grimmjow, do you know any tricks with that sword?"

Grimmjow cracks his eyes open, irritated. "What do you think a sword is, you shitty brat?" he berates the boy, returning Ichigo's 'shitty old man' with an insult of his own. "It's a weapon, not a toy."

When Ichigo keeps giving him the pleading look, he says, "Fine, here's a trick—I'll shove that sword down your throat blade-first and you'll watch it come out of the other end."

"Ew, no!" Ichigo blurts out with a grimace. "But you know how to fight with it, right? Can you fight without it too?"

"Of course," he scoffs, as if insulted by the mere question. "Beating someone up with your bare fists is the best kinda fight."

Ichigo, however, has already moved on to thinking about different things, barely having listened to the spirit's answer. "Grimmjow, how old are you?"

Grimmjow frowns slightly, and doesn't respond.

"Don't you know?" Ichigo guesses.

"Never kept track."

"That's so weird. I'm already nine, you know! My birthday was three months ago!" Ichigo says with a smile, which then falters when he remembers he didn't get any presents again this year, just money.

"I'm definitely older than nine."

Ichigo chuckles, the gloomy thought fleeting, and he thinks he catches a slight twitch of the man's lips. He's starting to warm up to the eccentric spirit, even if he was intimidating at first glance. He's also kind of a jerk, but Ichigo feels like he doesn't have any bad intentions. Not towards him, anyway.

The moment is interrupted when he hears voices from downstairs. There are several of them, and he recognizes them instantly, his body stiffening. Why are they here? They evidently didn't follow him—was it just his bad luck that they chose to mess around at this warehouse?

"…believe Kurosaki got away, though."

The voices are getting closer and Ichigo stands up, but knows he has nowhere to run. He's completely cornered, and he'll be toast if they check in this room.

"Heh, we'll just get him next time."

Ichigo now looks at Grimmjow, who is staring at him but seems indifferent to the whole ordeal. He's invisible to them, after all. It won't matter if they come barging in here.

"I guess this is the highest floor! Makes for a pretty sweet…" One of the voices trails off before taking on a panicked tone. "C-can't… breathe…"

The others join him, frantic.

"What-what the hell is…"

"We gotta get outta here, guys!"

It is then that Ichigo notices the energy radiating off Grimmjow, but this time, it isn't aimed at him. The heavy, dark waves are aimed straight at his tormentors, who are now running down the stairs as if the devil were chasing them.

Ichigo is wide-eyed. It's the first time anyone has helped him get rid of the bullies and driven them off so successfully, without even lifting a finger! He's overtaken by a mixture of awe and gratitude, something that seems to tick Grimmjow off.

"Don't get the wrong idea, brat," he says with a scowl. "They were just making too much noise and trespassing in my territory."

The boy wants to then ask why he hasn't turned away Ichigo yet for trespassing, but decides for once that it is better to grin quietly. In his mind, he's just made a new friend. "Thanks anyway, Grimmjow."

"Tch," The man suddenly stands up, grabbing his sword and tucking it underneath his sash. He walks over to Ichigo, who blinks and stands up hastily, getting nervous as he wonders what Grimmjow is doing.

His question is answered when the man bends down and scoops him up, holding him underneath one arm as if he weighs nothing. "H-hey! What are you doing?!"

"Taking you home. Where's your house?"

Ichigo struggles as Grimmjow walks to one of the glassless windows. "I don't wanna go!"

"I'm not letting you stay here either, kid. You talk too much. Now tell me, where's your house?"

The arm holding him doesn't budge an inch, and Ichigo finally gives up, giving him a brief description of where he lives. "You aren't going to _carry _me all the way, are you?"

Grimmjow doesn't respond, and with a leap, he jumps onto the windowsill, almost giving Ichigo a heart-attack. "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING, YOU CRAZY OLD GUY?!"

"Shut up," Grimmjow replies lazily, and jumps.

For the first few seconds, Ichigo is convinced they'll be hitting the ground and dying instantly. It was his own fault for randomly trusting a stranger, after all, right? And it's not like anyone will really miss him—

Then, of course, Grimmjow touches down on the roof of a building for the briefest second before jumping and soaring through the sky. Ichigo's screaming has stopped by now, Grimmjow not at all seeming to care to who might see them as he practically flies, and Ichigo stares his eyes out, the whole thing feeling like a roller-coaster.

The view of the city is amazing. He can see almost the whole of Karakura Town, and for some reason, he's not scared of falling. Grimmjow's arm is around him is tight and secure, and even though he's only known the spirit for an hour, he feels like he can trust him.

Grimmjow lands within a minute, and Ichigo feels a bit disappointed that it's over so soon. He's out of breath, and still pumping with adrenaline as Grimmjow puts him down in the empty street.

"That was amazing!" he exclaims. "How did you do that? I've never seen any spirit fly like that!"

Grimmjow still looks bored, but Ichigo thinks he can read something of amusement from his eyes. "Favor for a favor, kid." It takes a moment for the boy to catch up to his meaning, when he realizes the spirit is probably talking about the bandages and water bottle.

With saying nothing more, Grimmjow turns around and starts walking away. Alarmed, Ichigo calls out to him. He's not about to let the man disappear so soon without knowing if he'll be able to find him again.

"Wait!" He's actually surprised to see Grimmjow listen, and pause in his step. "Will you be in the warehouse tomorrow?"

The spirit glances at him from over his shoulder. "Maybe," he answers, and just like that, he vanishes into thin air like a real ghost.

Ichigo slowly returns back inside, the sky having gone dark again, and even as his adoptive parents scold him for being late and send him upstairs without dinner, Ichigo finds that he doesn't care.

Today, he has made a new friend.


	2. ROLE MODEL

**Note: **What the hell, I did not at all expect the amount of reviews that I got, seeing how it's my first story! I'm glad you all seemed to like it, so here's the second chapter, uploaded several days earlier than I initially planned. Enjoy, and please review if you can!

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><p><strong>II: ROLE MODEL<strong>

The new week has started, and there are no classes. The vacation would've been a very dreary experience for Ichigo usually, but during these particular holidays he has found a new way to spend his time.

While Mr. Fukui is at work Ichigo wakes up and goes downstairs for breakfast Mrs. Fukui has prepared for him. She never eats with him when her husband is not present; she sits at the head of the dining table, an ash tray where her plate should be with a cigarette between her lips, and watches him wolf down his food with a displeased glare. Instead of correcting his eating etiquette, however, she simply takes another long drag from her cigarette.

He's used to it, so he ignores it, and hurries outside as soon as he's finished. There's still a smudge of strawberry jam on the corner of his mouth and he nearly bumps into several people who are heading to work, but he can't help it. He's excited.

The morning is fresh and breezy. It feels as if the sun has just woken up, the cloudless sky greeting him with bright rays of light as he breathes in and out, for the first time in a long while feeling optimistic about the rest of the day. Crossing the street, he tries to recall the way to the warehouse which is more difficult than he first thought. He _was_ in the middle of being chased when he found it, so he didn't really pay attention to his surroundings. All he knows is that it's close to a large playground, surrounded by other large buildings similar to it.

It doesn't deter the boy in the least for searching it, though. He makes sure to stay away from the playground in case he runs into anyone unpleasant, and manages to at least find the district where he remembers the warehouse to be. The shadows cast by the towering constructions of steel and stone make the temperature drop a few degrees, and he shivers lightly as he wanders into an empty street with no clear distinction between the road and the sidewalk.

Now where is that warehouse? Ichigo cranes his neck to look at all the buildings he passes, eyes searching for anything he might recognize. It all looks the same to him; dull colors, old and abandoned-looking. How is he ever going to find Grimmjow now?

He comes to a stop at the corner of the street after walking for ten minutes and ending up nowhere. Of course the boy isn't about to give up, but he stops briefly anyway. At this rate he'll just get lost. He needs a better way to go about it.

An innocent little thought occurs to him, and, being the uninhibited child he is, he doesn't think twice about executing it. So, sucking deeply, pulling up his hands to frame around his mouth, with all the voice he has, he shouts.

"GRIMMJOW!"

The yell ricochets against the walls of the buildings surrounding him, the sound almost staggeringly loud. There's no one else in the street, but even if they were, Ichigo wouldn't have paid them any mind.

Seconds pass, and nothing happens. Starting to resume his walk, he takes another breath, and is about to shout for a second time when something hard hits the back of his head and he ends up face-first on the ground with a startled yelp.

"I heard you the first time, shitty brat." a gruff voice snaps at him as he pulls himself up to his knees, rubbing his nose with teary eyes from the sudden pain and a deep scowl on his face. "Why are you here?"

Looking over his shoulder, Ichigo blinks up at the blue-haired spirit before two completely opposite reactions follow back to back.

First, an excited, "Grimmjow!" as he scrambles up to his feet.

Then, an attempted kick at the man's shins while yelling, "That hurt, you jerk!" It feels like he's kicking a wall when his foot connects with Grimmjow's leg, who glares down at him, unimpressed.

"Answer my question."

Ichigo lets out an agitated huff, crossing his arms as he tries not to show his contentment at meeting the spirit again. "I got bored so I thought I might as well come see what you're up to." His eyes flit down briefly to the man's bandaged waist. A faint stain of red shows through said bandages, but it isn't as heavy as yesterday.

Grimmjow turns his head away for a moment, scoffing quietly to himself, just soft enough for Ichigo to miss the words, but he bets they weren't anything positive.

"So, um," Ichigo resumes talking, trying to not let the spirit's grumpy mood get to him, "what are you up to?"

"Humoring little shits like you, apparently."

"Well, if you hate me that much, why are you even bothering?" Ichigo grumbles, feeling his own mood souring and plummeting further and further.

Grimmjow puts his hands in his pockets, long fingers disappearing inside the white hakama as he looks back to Ichigo, expression losing some of its irritation. "You got a surprising amount of reiatsu for a kid—no, even by adult human standards it's way above average. "

"Huh?" Ichigo cocks his head to the side, puzzlement written all over his face. "Reiatsu?"

"It's the reason you can see me." Grimmjow pauses, seeming to think on something, before appearing to lose interest. "You got what you came for, now get lost."

Ichigo's mouth opens and closes slowly like a gaping fish before his own indignation sets in—first at being dismissed like some sort of dog, and then at the condescending look in the spirit's eyes. Sure, he's a kid, but that doesn't mean he can just be bossed around like this!

Setting the proverbial foot down, he meets Grimmjow's gaze head on with a glower of his own. The shocking blue of his irises drills into Ichigo's honey brown, and gradually, the air starts getting thicker and heavier.

It's an almost curious, gentle prodding at first, but the force of it quickly increases. He feels it press down on him, like a light push from above, the force gradually increasing, but the boy neither breaks eye-contact nor lets his shaking knees buckle, fists balled and brows furrowed in determination even as it gets more difficult to breathe.

Sweat starts forming on his skin and his lungs have already stopped functioning for a few seconds when Grimmjow's cold face contorts into an amused smirk and the pressure instantly disappears. Ichigo gasps, feeling disoriented and shaking his head wildly in an attempt to get a grip on himself.

"Well ain't that something."

Ichigo figures the remark is more of a personal aside than meant for him to respond to, but it's clear that he passed whatever test Grimmjow did just now and so, feeling emboldened, he restarts the conversation.

"So, do I still have to leave?" he demands to know, still catching his breath and wiping the sweat-drops from his forehead. When Grimmjow doesn't reply immediately, seeming to prefer observing the boy, Ichigo continues. "It's not like you have anyone else to talk to."

"Who says I gotta talk to anyone? I'm fine on my own."

"But you have to be bored," Ichigo points out. "You _look _like you're bored most of the time, anyway."

"So?"

"So... so I could make you... um... not bored?" Grimmjow's lips twist in a sneer, but before the no doubt cruel jab can pass them, Ichigo continues. "You've got nothing to lose, right?"

The spirit seems to consider this for a moment, and after a nearly tense moment of silence, he relents, although he seems to regret it immediately after the words leave him.

"Alright, kid. What do you do for fun around here?"

* * *

><p>The flat, smooth little stone skids over the surface of the water, tapping on it a total of three times before it plunges into the river. Ichigo frowns, unsatisfied, and looks around the ground for more stones.<p>

He briefly glances over his shoulder as he picks a fitting one up, the spirit sitting on the grass watching him with half-lidded eyes, a slight crease between his brows. Grimmjow hasn't said a word ever since Ichigo guided him here, avoiding crowded streets and walking with the man in silence. It is a bit unnerving.

Turning back to the still river, Ichigo throws the rock, watching it skip only two times. Puffing his cheeks with a scowl, he reaches down for another stone, when something whizzes right by him so fast he barely has time to look before he hears several splashes. One, two, three—the boy spins around and looks at the river, catching a glimpse of the splashing stone skidding over the water—seven, eight, nine, and it hits the other side.

"Woah, how did you—"

"This is boring." Grimmjow interrupts him, tone drawn out in a lethargic manner as he looks away, as if searching for something entertaining in his immediate surroundings. "You're wasting my time, brat."

Incensed by the rude statement, Ichigo picks up another stone, and throws out of frustration.

It skips over the water six times, almost reaching the other shore before it falls into the depths.

"Quick learner, eh?"

Ichigo's brief moment of pride at this improvement is ruined by the derision, and giving up on trying to play any sort of game with the man as he walks away from the river bank and sits himself down next to Grimmjow, albeit with some distance between them. Even as he is pretty certain the spirit won't hurt him, he's still uneasy with approaching him carelessly.

"You're no fun." the boy complains, Grimmjow's lips curling back to reveal sharp teeth as he continues his mocking.

"Your idea of fun is a shitty one."

"Oh yeah?" It's gotten offensive at this point. "What do _you _do for fun? Hang around in empty buildings all day?"

"When I wanna have fun, I kick someone's ass."

Fighting? Ichigo considers this, finding it does fit the guy, but it doesn't seem to be something they have in common. Ichigo doesn't fight for fun; he does it out of necessity. He has to be able to defend himself from the bullies, after all. _  
><em>

"Kinda sounds like them, actually." Ichigo mutters to himself, but apparently Grimmjow has impeccable hearing because he gives him an expectant look. "Just, uh, some kids in my neighborhood. They like to fight too."

"You don't?" A shake of the head. "Che, weakling."

"I'm not weak!"

Grimmjow snorts. "Sure you ain't. Lemme guess, those kids tend to gang up on you and you fight 'cause you have to."

The shock in Ichigo's expression gives him away before he can blurt out the staunch denial that forms in his head, and his cheeks burn red at being seen through so easily. Grimmjow is far more observant than he expected.

"So what if I do?" he grumbles, starting to pluck the grass from the ground, avoiding eye-contact.

"It's pathetic," Grimmjow replies brusquely. "If they're your enemies, then destroy them. Crush them until they can't lift a single finger against you anymore."

This isn't even an option he ever considered, so he isn't sure how to respond to him. Before he can even think on what Grimmjow has said, something else stands out to him. "You think I could do that?"

Blue eyes slide from the river over to the boy's face. He holds the boy's uncertain gaze for two seconds before his own moves away once more.

"I don't know about crushing anyone," Ichigo continues hesitantly, "but it would be nice if they stopped bothering me." He looks at the plucked blades of grass gathered in his palm and blows them off his hand when another curiosity arises. "That wound, you got it from a fight, right?"

Grimmjow glances down at what the boy's eyes are now glued on—the bandaged injury on his waist.

"Did you win that fight?" Ichigo asks, wiping some grass off his pants. The spirit's eyes narrow, and he takes it as a no. "Who did you fight?"

"A lapdog who thinks too highly of himself." Grimmjow snarls, as if the memory alone infuriates him, his jaw clenching briefly. The movement pulls Ichigo's attention to the bone-mask covering one side of the lower half of his face—he'd never gotten a straight answer about that now he thinks about it, nor about the large hole in the man's abdomen.

"What was his name?" he asks, shaking the thought off and returning to the topic at hand.

"Ulquiorra Cifer." The word is spit out as if it is acid on the tongue, accompanied by a growling baritone that makes the hairs on the back of Ichigo's neck stand on end.

He swallows thickly, trying to stand strong in the face of the sheer murderous intent radiating from the spirit, and though it isn't aimed at him, had he not been sitting his knees would've been shaking.

"I guess you guys didn't like each other, huh?" Ichigo says nervously, pulling up his knees a bit, subconsciously arranging a defensive position for himself. As good-natured as he is and as much as he wants to think the best of people, there is no doubt that getting on the bad side of this person would mean certain death.

"That's putting it lightly."

"You fought him on the other side, right?" The boy decides to focus their conversation on something else. "What's it like?"

Grimmjow is silent for a moment, and lifts his head, looking up to the sky, tense shoulders relaxing slightly. "It's always night over there." he starts slowly, the force of his voice dimmed to a rougher base. "The sun here is fucking blinding."

"Wait, there's no sun where you're from?" Ichigo can't imagine a life without the sun. If it's constantly night, then how do you keep track of time?

It takes a bit more prodding with questions that seem to annoy the spirit somewhat, but eventually Grimmjow answers. Ichigo takes in the descriptions of endless hills of sand in a monochromatic world, trying to imagine a crescent moon looming over everyone else. It sounds nothing like any kind of afterlife he'd imagined for himself.

Grimmjow doesn't seem to like the place either, but even as he draws comparisons to earth, he seems to hate the latter more. He finds it noisy and boring, and despises its inhabitants. At least in Hueco Mundo (that's what it's called, apparently) the strong thrive while the weak are exterminated.

It is somewhat of a shocking revelation to Ichigo, who ends up with the nightmarish image of a purgatory-like place, and suddenly it's not that strange how aggressive and powerful Grimmjow is. No, now it makes perfect sense, and in honesty, it frightens Ichigo a bit.

What if he ends up there, when he dies?

Grimmjow notices the boy's sudden silence at the end of his elaboration on where he came from, eyebrows arching slightly.

"You scared, kid?" There is no berating tinge to his words now, no arrogance in his expression or irritation or impatience. Ichigo wants to say that he isn't scared, but the thoughts keep pouring out.

What if Hueco Mundo is where his parents went after their death?

"Dumbass, you just got outta your diapers, you shouldn't be shitting yourself at some distant future possibility."

_You're still young_.

His crude words translate to Ichigo like that.

_You're still young, so don't worry._

It eases his disquieted heart a bit, and he exhales a shaky breath, looking up at the spirit with a half-hearted smile in gratitude. "Yeah, I guess so."

There are no more words exchanged between them, after that. The quiet is more comfortable, and for once, Ichigo doesn't have anything else to ask him.

He lies on his back in the grass, looking up at the unclouded sky and marvels at how much of the vast color reminds him of the man sitting next to him. A man with seemingly no regard for others, someone with an undoubtedly violent and predatory side who cares little for the ones around him, arrogant and temperamental, and yet, the presence of this man sets him at ease.

Call it instinct, but Ichigo knows there has to be more to the spirit than what he lets show, more than the most basic characteristics he puts on display. Vast, and blue.

Yes, underneath a sky like this, there's no need for worry.

* * *

><p>The boy visits him every morning, and stays with him until noon, after which Grimmjow retreats to the warehouse. Every day is a new day filled with discoveries. Some are more revealing than others, like what Grimmjow's other former comrades are like, and some are trivial things, like how Grimmjow hates the color yellow. Ichigo latches on to whatever the spirit is willing to give him, the mystery around it too tempting to leave alone.<p>

What's more is that he simply likes Grimmjow, and being around him is fun in its own way. Unlike most adults, he's incredibly straightforward and honest, and while he does treat Ichigo like a child, or a nuisance half the time, the fact that he has tolerated the boy hanging around him so far can only be a good sign, right?

That's what Ichigo hopes, anyway.

With this new friend to interact with, the evenings go by tortuously slow and the mornings always fly by. Before he knows it, he's nearing the end of the holidays, and by then Grimmjow has stopped using bandages though the wound still looks like a painful cut and will definitely leave some scarring.

It also seems to still cause him some pain. When he thinks the kid isn't looking, and they're walking through the streets, Ichigo sometimes catches glimpses of a flinch briefly betrayed by the man's features. Grimmjow needs stitches, and Ichigo suggested as much to him once, but he brushed it off, prideful as he is.

"But if you don't, it might open up again," Ichigo says on a Friday afternoon, walking back towards his house with the spirit beside him, ignoring the looks he gets from other people as to them it looks as if he's talking to no one.

"I don't need it." Grimmjow snaps impatiently, and that's the end of that. Ichigo pouts, glaring at him for a moment before giving up. Determined to become a doctor later, he's already sucking up as much information on the subject as he can, and a wound like that really needs a stitch, but Grimmjow isn't gonna budge.

He's worried about it. He really is. In this short period of time to boy has attached himself to the spirit like a moth drawn to flame, and as such, his innate protective streak is starting to kick in, even though Grimmjow is more capable of looking after himself than Ichigo is.

"Fine, I'll try not to say, _I told you so_, when it rips open." Ichigo replies stubbornly, scrunching up his nose in disgust at the mere thought of it.

Grimmjow flicks his forehead and Ichigo yelps at the sudden pain—this also has become somewhat of a routine. Whenever Ichigo becomes too snarky for Grimmjow's taste, the man either flicks his forehead with his index finger or gives him a slap upside the head if he's _really _out of line.

It's really annoying, but it doesn't actually hurt any more than a pinch in his arm would, so Ichigo doesn't mind. It's actually nice to think they already have some sort of habit between them now. Grimmjow is becoming more and more like a brother-type of figure in the boy's mind as he spends time with him, and it makes his life that much brighter.

"Better hurry on home, kid." Grimmjow says, stopping at the corner of the street, probably planning to return to the warehouse. Ichigo is still rubbing the red spot on his forehead as he sighs.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll—"

Movement distracts him, the sound of familiar voices cutting through his thoughts.

A group of boys have just rounded the corner on the other end of the street. They are none other than Ichigo's worst tormentors, and the leader spots him immediately, green eyes flashing with glee at the sight of him.

"Oi, Kurosaki!" the blond boy jeers, increasing his pace, his followers right behind him. Kazuo is two years older than him and bigger than him, and nothing seems to please him more than turning Ichigo's life into a living hell whenever he has the opportunity. "'S been a while, yeah?"

Ichigo's entire body is rigid for a moment before he takes a step back, body shifting into a defensive stance, remembering the old routine. He makes a headcount—six of them. That's too many. He can take on four at most, but with six he's in serious trouble.

"Heh, he looks like he's 'bout to pee his pants!" one of the boys says, Kazuo laughing loudly at the insult as Ichigo slowly inches back. The motions don't go unnoticed.

"Where ya headin', Kurosaki? We just wanna play!" Kazuo calls out with a grin, approaching closer fast. "Come play with us!"

_'Go die, jerk,' _Ichigo thinks with a scowl, and takes another step back, taking a deep breath and preparing to bolt.

That is until he catches Grimmjow's gaze, cool and unwavering as it is fixed on him, nailing him to the ground just like that.

"You gonna run?" is all he asks, and it's enough for Ichigo to switch gears instantly.

He can't run, not in front of Grimmjow. It would be more humiliating than fighting and getting his ass kicked—at least the effort would be somewhat redeemable in the spirit's eyes, but turning his back and high-tailing it out of there is something he absolutely cannot do in front of Grimmjow. He wants to impress him, and avoiding a fight isn't gonna cut it.

"No way," Ichigo replies cockily as he steels his resolve, looking back at the gang of boys.

"Eh? When did you grow a pair, Kurosaki?" Kazuo mocks as Ichigo starts walking towards them, back straight and chin up, heart going wild inside his ribcage. This is stupid. He's going to get his ass kicked.

But Grimmjow is watching. He has to do this.

"Around the same time you lost yours." Ichigo retorts, looking smug as Kazuo grits his teeth and attempts to glare a hole through his head.

"You're gonna pay for that!" he snaps, the other boys instantly surrounding him.

And as expected, the fight doesn't start in his favor.

It's mostly just a mess of limbs and shouts. You can't expect much else from kids, and Ichigo is the only one who moves like he had training, his opponents throwing uncontrolled and reckless punches and kicks, even accidentally hitting each other a few times. Still, their ferocity is overpowering.

Someone pulls at his shirt, someone else scratches at his arm, knuckles hit his jaw and a foot rams against his upper leg. The assault is disorienting; he doesn't know how to defend from the barrage, ache shooting through his body from every hit. He really should've run. He's gonna end up black and blue and red by the time this is over. This was the stupidest idea he ever—

"You gonna lose against these brats?" The spirits voice cuts through the chaos like the edge of a blade, a semblance of clarity that offers him something to hold onto. "Guess I overestimated you. They're your enemies, aren't they?"

_Crush them._

Ichigo, both arms shielding his face, tastes the iron of blood in his mouth, and gathers whatever nerve he has left as Kazuo hits him in the stomach, nearly making him keel over.

If defense doesn't work, then wild punches it is.

And the aftermath is glorious.

Ichigo bursts out from his defensive position with a battle cry and comes out swinging like a crazy person. They _are _his enemies, and this time, self-defense won't save him. Grimmjow is right. If he wants this to stop, he needs to beat them down until they're too weak to stand up again.

It's definitely a sort of desperation that drives him to it, mixed with pure fury—not even necessarily at his bullies, but at everything that has gone wrong for him over the last few years. His anger at having such terrible parents, his sorrow at never knowing what a real family feels like, his fear that the closest friend he's made could disappear to the other side at any day; it's all in his fists, and he throws it out.

For a moment, it's almost like a daze, and when he comes to, six boys are lying on the ground and he has blood on his knuckles. Blinking slowly, he looks at the injured, some groaning, some crying, some trying to get up—one of them succeeds, and the look of pure terror on the kid's face as he stares at Ichigo isn't something he'll ever forget.

He gets a small kick out of watching the boy run away, but a much larger part of himself is terrified too.

He never knew he was capable of this.

And then he feels _good _about it. He feels good about watching his enemies writhe on the ground from their injuries, and he tries to replay the fight in his head, tries to recapture the feel of pure adrenaline. There was something... something fun about it. For the first time, he thinks he might understand why Grimmjow's favorite past-time is fighting.

"Took you long enough," said man drawls, and Ichigo stares up at him, searching his indifferent expression. His facial features seem lighter than usual. A bit amused, maybe? There's a pause there as Grimmjow stares right back at him, and then, a toothy grin spreads out on his face. "Keep at it, kid. You might make a worthy opponent one day."

Ichigo's lips part but nothing comes out, and with a last look at the bullies spread out over the pavement, Grimmjow vanishes in thin air with a short, booming noise. Ichigo frowns slightly, and then turns to look at his own reflection in a window.

His lip is bleeding, and he has a black eye, and there's definitely some bruises forming there, but he came out of it better than he anticipated.

Kazuo groans, sitting up slowly, holding his nose, blood dripping down over his mouth and chin, splattering all over his clothes.

Ichigo moves, and stands in front of him, looking down with a deep scowl. At the sight of him, the blond winces before he even does anything.

"Hey, Ichigo, you know we were just messing around, right? _Right_? It was all just fun and—"

Self-defense really is pointless. Straight up kicking your opponent's ass is way more effective.

"If you don't start leaving me alone," the boy interrupts him fiercely, brown eyes burning with the promise of violence, "then next time, _I'll crush you_. Got it?"

Kazuo nods profusely, face pale.

With that taken care of, Ichigo puts his hands in his pockets with a grin, and walks past the other boy, stepping over someone else and walking off, imitating the way Grimmjow does it—confident and utterly dominating.

This is the part where, unbeknownst to the man himself, Grimmjow becomes more than a new friend.


	3. OLDER BROTHER

**Note: **So I'll usually update on Sundays, sometimes once a week, sometimes once every two weeks depending on my schedule from now on, so keep that in mind-and please keep the reviews coming! It's really my only reward for writing this, so it's pretty important in continuing this story. Now please enjoy this next chapter!

* * *

><p><strong>III: OLDER BROTHER<strong>

He wakes up early two days after _the incident_, earlier than usual. It's a Monday, thankfully—Ichigo is the sort of kid who's a lot more eager to go to school than most, mainly because either staying at home or playing outside usually doesn't end up well.

Washing up and brushing his teeth, he gets dressed in his school uniform and goes downstairs with his schoolbag clutched in his right hand. Lingering near the bottom of the stairs, the door to the dining room is wide open and he can see both his adoptive parents already seated, waiting for him.

Taking a deep breath and putting his schoolbag aside against the wall, he walks towards his seat in between his parents who are sitting on either end of the long, ebony table.

"Good morning," he mutters quietly, looking down at the food and not meeting anyone's gaze.

"You're going to be late," Mrs. Fukui remarks stiffly, her black hair pulled up in a tight knot as it usually is, the purple lipstick she's wearing contrasting against her pale skin. "Hurry up and eat."

Ichigo doesn't reply and instead picks up his chopsticks, concentrating on the food. Mr. Fukui is quiet as usual. He's a very strict but detached parent, even more so than his wife, being a clean-shaven, suit-wearing CEO of some sort of electronics company. His dark brown hair is always slicked back neatly, face devoid of any emotion. He seldom even talks to Ichigo if he can help it; any questions he ever asks are always in regards to his schoolwork.

Breakfast passes in silence. No one bids him a good day at school as he stands up and leaves, putting his shoes on, grabbing his bag and slamming the door shut behind him.

Every day is the same thing. If he ran away neither of them would care. If he dropped dead they'd probably celebrate. Why they adopted him in the first place is beyond him; he'd be better off living with a poor family who loved him instead of these wealthy machines pretending to be human beings. They refused to even change his surname to their own. What does that say about how they see him as a son?

Trudging towards school, he tries cheering himself up as he reminds himself he'll have after-school karate lessons, and he can visit Grimmjow again in the warehouse.

While Ichigo gets along with most of his peers, he doesn't really _have _friends, aside from Tatsuki. She lives on the other side of town, though, so it's hard to hang out after school. Not to mention that Tatsuki has been spending more time with that orange-haired girl… Inui? Is that her name? Iguchi? Ichimura? Something like that, anyway.

When he arrives at school he's perfectly on time unlike what Mrs. Fukui claimed. He's not exactly looking forward to the lessons, but if nothing else, he has to do well in his studies. He wants to grow up to be a doctor, like his real dad was, and that means that he has to work really hard. Neither of his adoptive parents were impressed when he told them of his dream—he's going to prove them wrong.

"Yo, Ichigo!" Tatsuki greets him from her seat as he walks towards his own after arriving in his classroom.

"Hey, Tatsuki." he replies, putting his schoolbag down on his desk and sitting on his chair. The teacher hasn't come in yet, and his classmates are spread in small groups around the class, talking loudly to their friends.

"How was your weekend?"

Ichigo shrugs. "Alright."

Tatsuki frowns slightly at his glum tone as she turns around, the two of them being seated in the same row though there is an empty desk between them at the moment. "Your parents again, huh?"

"Nothing happened." Ichigo mumbles, taking his homework out of his bag and avoiding her look.

"Ya know, me and Orihime are going to get some ice cream after karate practice. You wanna come with?" she offers, and he appreciates her attempt at being friendly, but he knows he has to decline.

"Sorry, I got somewhere else to be after practice." he says with a shake of his head, barely suppressing his grin. Tatsuki raises her eyebrows and opens her mouth to say something, when another student walking in pulls her attention. It's Orihime In… Iwa… Ino… oh, whatever.

The girl greets Tatsuki cheerfully, casting a shy glance towards Ichigo as she sits down in the row next to theirs and the two of them start chatting. Ichigo sighs and turns his gaze out the window, wondering what Grimmjow is up to.

* * *

><p>He worked much harder during practice than usual, his instructor praising him for his good form. Even Tatsuki was surprised when he managed to get another kid down on his back during a brief sparring session. Now more than ever, Ichigo wants to become stronger. Initially karate had been just a means for him to defend himself in case it came down to a fight—while he often walks away with bruises, he always makes sure his bullies walk away with a few of their own.<p>

But after what Grimmjow said the first day they met, about fighting to win and not just to survive, after his victory over his tormentors last Friday, impressionable as he still is at this young age Ichigo has decided to follow his advice. From now on he's not just going to train to defend himself, and yeah, he doesn't really _have _a reason to fight because he has nothing or no one to protect, but winning for once, to be the one to come out on top… it's too appealing to ignore. It felt too good, too empowering.

With this kind of mind-set, Ichigo discovers that fighting (even if it is just practice) is a lot more fun when you're striving for victory. Maybe his reason to fight can be just that simple, fighting to win. He discovers that when it comes down to it, he has quite the competitive streak.

About fifteen minutes after the end of practice he walks past all the kids whose parents are waiting for them to take them home. No one is waiting for him. It doesn't bother him anymore because he's long given up hope of either of his adoptive parents showing interest in his after-school activities; they take it for granted. Of course he's doing karate—they'd be dismayed if he didn't, therefore his effort deserves no praise. It's only natural.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he heads towards the warehouse, shoulders tense in case he runs into anyone unpleasant. It's unlikely he'll see any of the neighborhood kids since they stick to their own block, and after their humiliating defeat at his hands he doubts they'll go after him again, but you never know.

It's tiring to constantly watch your back like this. Ichigo bets Grimmjow doesn't have a problem like this. The spirit is incredibly strong; he'd never have to fear anyone else.

He comes to a stop on the corner of a street, salary-men and people in fancy suits passing him and ignoring him. The abandoned warehouse is close to the business center of Karakura Town that's lined with banks and large companies, so he supposes anyone he'd run into here would be an adult or whatever.

He remembers a detail of when they met yesterday—Grimmjow had wanted more water. The spirit constantly seems to need more of it; Ichigo has spent nearly all of his pocket money on buying him bottles of liquid. Keeping that in mind, he spends what little he has left in his wallet on three more water bottles, stuffing them in his bag and continuing on the road.

Exploring the mazes of alleyways, he finally finds the warehouse, the old building looking like it's about to crumble into ruins from the outside now he takes a good look at it. He spots a group of teenagers smoking nearby, hanging around with bottles in their hands or something that looks like a cigarette but smells funny. He passes them quietly.

"Oi, little guy, ain't ya too young to be hanging around these parts?" one of them yells after him, the others snickering. Ichigo increases his pace as he ignores them, walking faster and crossing the street.

Slipping into the dead-end alley, he pulls open the old, graffiti-clad door and gets inside. He doesn't relax until he arrives at the stairs and feels the heavy trickle of Grimmjow's aura radiating throughout the building.

Practically running up to the fourth floor, he's out of breath by the time he ends up in the dusty, shadow-covered corridor. He knows Grimmjow is in one of the rooms, and hurries to check each and every one, until he finds the man in the second one on the right this time.

He's sitting on the windowsill, one leg stretched out and the other hanging outside. The wound underneath his ribs still isn't entirely healed, and several cuts are still marring his arms, but the injuries are now turning faint and faded. There's no sunlight on this side of the building, though his eyes still shine a vivid blue as they shift to look at him, boring right through him.

It's crazy to feel so at ease with a spirit that's clearly dangerous and radiates the aura of a predator, but Ichigo can't help but grin at the sight of him.

"What's up, old man?" he greets the spirit, dropping his bag aside and taking a few steps towards him. Grimmjow doesn't move, and instead keeps watching him intently. At his silence, Ichigo starts getting a little nervous. "So, um, your wound looks better."

"Don't you have a family to go home to, brat?"

The question throws him off, his smile instantly fading from his features. The truth is that he doesn't, not really, but it feels too painful to acknowledge. If his parents hadn't died, then maybe things would be better. There'd be his mom to pick him up from karate practice, and his dad waiting at home for him after a long day of work at the hospital. They'd have dinner and breakfast as a family, and Ichigo could tell them about his day, and they'd encourage him in his studies and hobbies, and…

"I beat a kid at practice today." Ichigo says instead, sitting down on the cold, dirty floor, not caring about his pants being covered in dust. "I got him on his back within a minute."

Grimmjow observes him a moment longer, before shifting his head to look outside. "Keep it up."

Is that praise? Ichigo can't exactly tell, but he supposes this is the closest he'll get to with Grimmjow, and he perks up again, a warm feeling filling his chest. "Yeah! I'll get much stronger than this, you'll see!"

The spirit grunts in acknowledgement but otherwise seems to prefer watching out the window, not bothering to keep a conversation going.

"Hey, Grimmjow, what do you do all day?" Ichigo questions, remembering his earlier thoughts during his classes. He can't imagine hanging around in a warehouse is an entertaining way to spend your time.

"I wait for you to grace me with your presence," the spirit sneers sarcastically.

"Ha, if you were lonely you could've just said so," Ichigo retorts with a smirk, his remark leading him to another thought. "Do you have any family?"

"No."

"And friends? Like, real friends. Not just comrades or whatever."

Grimmjow swings his legs to the inside, leaning his elbows on his arms as he stares down at the boy with a slight scowl. "I had followers."

The response puzzles the boy. "What kinda followers?"

"They fought with me."

"What happened to them?"

A beat. "I left them behind."

"Why?"

"You're noisy. Shut up."

Ichigo crosses his arms, frowning deeply. "Why did they follow you?"

At this, he receives a slight smirk, somewhat cocky. "'Cause I am the king."

That sounds highly unlikely. He doesn't look like a king.

"King of what? If you're a king, where's your crown? Don't kings have those?"

"You're getting on my nerves, brat." Grimmjow growls, and Ichigo flinches at the sharp response, realizing he's close to crossing the line. He falls into silence, staring at the ground in front of him as he tries imagining Grimmjow as a king.

Maybe it's not that far-fetched, but he doesn't really look like royalty. He can imagine Grimmjow sitting on a throne, but not with a crown. It would get in the way of his hair.

"How do you become a king?" Ichigo asks carefully, peeking up at the man who's been gazing down at him all this time.

"By being the strongest." That, at least, Ichigo can believe. With just his energy alone Grimmjow can chase away other people, Ichigo can't imagine how strong he would be if he actually fought.

He looks at his bag, and remembers the items he's bought earlier, opening it and pulling out a water bottle. Looking up to Grimmjow, he holds it out to him. "Here, you asked for another one again yesterday, right?"

The spirit raises his eyebrows slightly, but reaches out nonetheless, wrapping long fingers around the top of the water bottle. His hands are much bigger than Ichigo's. They look stronger, too.

The boy watches him pull the cap off and take a few big gulps of it, throwing the rest of it on his face. For the first time, the spirit looks a bit tired.

"Hey, Grimmjow," Ichigo starts again, and Grimmjow glances at him as a way to tell him he's listening, "if you're a king, do you think I'd make a good knight?"

The man looks a bit taken aback by the sudden and somewhat odd question, the small furrow between his brows giving his bemusement away before he crushes the bottle and throws it out the window. "You ask too many questions."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"If you wanna be a knight, you gotta follow orders." Grimmjow replies languidly, brushing his hand through a few wet locks of hair and combing it back. "But mindlessly listening to whatever your boss says ain't good either. You have to have a mind of your own as well."

Ichigo thinks about this for a while, supposing the man has a point. "So… just a few questions?"

"You wanna be a knight, kid?" Grimmjow looks amused, as if the mere thought is ridiculous. Ichigo feels a bit insulted.

"Knights are heroic, you know! They protect their country, and loved ones, and they're noble and kind and honorable, and everyone looks up to them, and… and…" A blush starts creeping up on his face, and he looks away with a pout. "So what?"

Grimmjow shakes his head. "Think about getting stronger first. Then you can worry about becoming a knight." The mocking tone of his voice is unmistakable, and it agitates Ichigo, who always means what he says and is stubborn and almost single-minded about this goals. It's not like he literally wants to be a knight because they don't exist anymore, but the idea behind it is what he aims for.

"I will! I'll get stronger, I'll get even stronger than you!" Ichigo states, scowling deeply.

The spirit regards him with mild interest now, much different than the look he gave him before as if he were an ant about the be trampled underneath his boot. "You got guts, kid, I'll give you that."

At the unexpected compliment, Ichigo relaxes again, grinning widely. He can't remember ever being this straightforward with anyone else; usually he's pretty reticent, even with Tatsuki at times. It's different with Grimmjow—the spirit is someone he genuinely wants to impress.

"Do you wanna go outside?" Ichigo suggests then, not all that interested in hanging around in the warehouse for the next few hours.

"No." Grimmjow's rejection is instant.

"Why not?" He receives no reply and sighs deeply. "But it's no fun in here."

"It's safer around this time of day."

Ichigo blinks in surprise, not understanding what danger there could possibly be outside of the warehouse late noon. Grimmjow turns his back on him, swinging his legs over the windowsill to the outside this time. It's then that Ichigo notices something on the man's lower back—it's a tattoo of some sort, a roughly drawn '6'. Now he thinks about it, this is the first time Grimmjow has shown him his back. Usually he's always facing Ichigo in some way.

Without thinking, he stands up and reaches out to touch it with his fingertips, noticing that the man's skin feels oddly warm. He was half expecting for his hand to slip right through the spirit as often happens with other ghosts, but it's solid.

Grimmjow doesn't stir, merely glancing at him over his shoulder with a warning glare as if a cat irritated at being petted, making Ichigo quickly pull his hand back, blushing in embarrassment.

"Why do you have a six on your back?" he asks shyly, both hands on his back as if he'd just been caught stealing out of the cookie jar.

"Rank." Grimmjow replies gruffly. "Mine was Sexta."

"Oh." Does that mean there were five other guys higher ranked than him? But he thought Grimmjow was a king? Ichigo wants to ask about it, but knights aren't supposed to ask too many questions, and he doesn't think the man would appreciate it. "So you aren't Sexta anymore?"

"No."

"Hmm…" Ichigo looks up at the back of Grimmjow's head, the man's eyes now firmly fixed on the cityscape. The boy feels a bit left out, so he puts his hands on the small, empty space next to Grimmjow on the windowsill and pulls himself up. He swings his legs over the edge as well, and glances down—a mistake. The height of their position briefly makes him dizzy, the ground so far below, and he gasps, hands reaching out for something to hold, finding it in Grimmjow's jacket.

The spirit looks down at him, and looks annoyed, but doesn't brush his hands off. His glare is enough for Ichigo to quickly pull his hands back, muttering an apology.

Brown eyes look up, and he stares out over the city, the view breath-taking. The sun is setting on the other side of the building, but from this side they can see the light reflecting off the windows of cars, buildings and the steel of lampposts. Karakura Town has an orange glow at this time of day.

So intent on staring out over the city, Ichigo doesn't realize he's leaning too far out and almost loses his balance, yelping as he feels himself slipping off the edge. Fingers grasp the back of his shirt and yank him into safety.

"Idiot." Grimmjow grumbles next to him, not looking at him. Even if he acts like Ichigo's presence is irritating, actions like these only make the boy grow fonder of him, and even sitting on the edge of a window from the fourth floor, he feels safe with Grimmjow next to him.

They don't talk for a long while, and Ichigo finds he doesn't mind. He's still burning to ask Grimmjow more questions, but the moment is peaceful, and he doesn't want to break it. His feet swinging back and forth, he quickly grows used to the height and watches people down below, some cars passing by, heading back home. They look so tiny from up where they are.

It's nice like this. Maybe sometimes you don't need words. Just sitting like this feels plenty comfortable.

He glances at Grimmjow's profile, taking note of the man's sharp features and his half-lidded eyes, pondering what the man is thinking of. He also wonders why a king would leave his kingdom behind, and what he meant by it being 'safer' up here.

After a few minutes, he starts growing a bit sleepy, his thoughts wandering off as he's lulled into a sense of serenity. Leaning his head to the side, he watches the sky steadily grow darker, the reds and oranges fading out into a darker blue creeping in from the horizon.

"I don't really have a family." he mutters, Grimmjow's question earlier coming to mind. He might as well answer it. He doesn't think the spirit will judge him for it, and maybe, now he can get it all off his chest. Grimmjow is silent, but Ichigo feels like he's listening, so he continues. "My real parents died when I was three. I don't remember much of either of them. I got adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Fukui when I was four. They don't really treat me like a son. Sometimes they'll scold me or punish me when I do badly at school or break a rule, but I don't think they care about me much. I have one friend, her name is Tatsuki. She's really strong, you know, and great at karate. I wanna be able to beat her some day.

"When I grow up, I wanna be a doctor, like my dad was. I don't know much about him, but I have a few pictures of him and mom. Mrs. Fukui told me they died in a car crash. If they hadn't died, I'd be living with them now, and I'd probably have siblings. I'm pretty much alone most of the time."

"Nothing wrong with being alone." Grimmjow replies quietly, eyes unmoving from the view in front of him. Ichigo peers up at him, chewing his lower lip.

"I guess not, but…" He tears his gaze away, looking down at his knees. Down below he can hear the group of teens he'd seen before chatting and laughing loudly with each other, carefree and cheerful.

"If you're lonely, then find others."

"You mean like followers?" Ichigo asks, curiosity setting in again as he watches the still posture of the man next to him. "Is that why you got yours? Because you were lonely?"

Grimmjow's eyes narrow slightly, glancing at him from the corners. "They followed me on their own accord. I never asked them to."

"Still, must be lonely for you too, without them here." the boy persists.

Grimmjow snorts. "I don't need them here when I have you talking my ear off. You chat more than all of them combined."

"How many of them were there?"

"Five."

"Is that why you got the 6?" Ichigo inquires curiously, and now Grimmjow turns his head to look at him, a slight smirk playing off his lips.

"Guess so."

He continues asking about Grimmjow's followers, and the spirit doesn't seem to mind these questions. He's pretty forthcoming as he lists off the men's names, all of them sounding very foreign to Ichigo's ears. He talks about them both individually and as a group, and Ichigo listens, asking questions whenever Grimmjow comes to a halt. They sound like any other group of friends. Some hotheaded, a few smart, mixed personalities that have at least one thing in common; they followed Grimmjow unquestionably.

As much as Grimmjow doesn't seem to mind being alone, Ichigo senses a sort of frustration there. The boy bets that Grimmjow would be more at ease with them here—it's always nice to have someone watching out for you, or someone you can rely on. The conversation also gives him more insight into the strange spirit. He values his followers, his comrades. They've proven their worth to him as brothers-in-arms, and even if he doesn't call them friends, Ichigo still thinks they must have a relationship close to that.

Before the boy realizes it, the sky has already transformed into its night colors, and he's way late for dinner. As their chat slowly comes to a halt, a sense of panic wraps its iron fingers around his throat. He's super late—Mrs. Fukui isn't going to be happy.

"You gonna pass out on me, kid?" Grimmjow asks lazily as Ichigo scrambles off the windowsill as if he's woken up from a trance, grabbing his bag.

"I really need to get going." He pulls out the two other water bottles he'd bought, setting them down on the floor. "Two bottles for a ride back home." Ichigo says, Grimmjow's lips quirking in a sneer.

"Trying to buy me?"

"Favor for a favor." Ichigo retorts with a smirk, Grimmjow's amused look giving him a sense of accomplishment as it's usually pretty hard to get the spirit to show him any other side but the nonchalant attitude.

The man hops off the windowsill and lifts him up under his arm again, ignoring the wincing of his rough handling. "Last time, kid." he says, and jumps out the window.

* * *

><p>"Useless," Mrs. Fukui snarls, nails digging into Ichigo's upper arm as she drags him up the stairs, ignoring his squirming. "Selfish, stupid boy. Do you know how long it took me to prepare dinner?! All that food gone to waste!"<p>

"I'm sorry!"

"Be quiet!" she snaps, pulling harder, her hand squeezing harshly into Ichigo's arm as she almost rips his bedroom door off its hinges, shoving him inside. He trips, landing on the floor and hitting his head on the edge of his bed. "No breakfast for you tomorrow morning, either, ungrateful mongrel!"

She slams the door shut, leaving Ichigo dizzied and pained, holding his head, hands shaking. The ache throbs through his skull and he starts feeling a bit nauseous, pulling his knees up against his chest, squeezing his eyes shut.

If he was stronger, she wouldn't be able to push him around like this. But he's weak. Pathetically weak. Forget about becoming a knight, at this rate he wouldn't even be a proper practice dummy.

Why do they hate him so much? Is there really just something wrong with him? He knows other children's parents don't treat them this way. He sees evidence of it every day, when they come to pick up their kids for school, when they show up to their school plays and soccer matches. Why is it different for him?

Slowly standing up and biting back tears, not wanting to give Mrs. Fukui that pleasure, he doesn't bother changing into his pajamas and instead slips into his bed, curling up under the covers. He keeps the lights on. The glow of it burning through his eyelids reminds him of the view he saw earlier that afternoon. If he tries hard enough, he can imagine himself there again, sitting on the windowsill next to Grimmjow—safe. Mrs. Fukui wouldn't be able to hurt him there.

If she thinks she can stop him from going back there, she's dead wrong. Ichigo's fists curl into his covers in determination. If he has to endure this abuse from his adoptive parents, fine. It's not as if they ever loved him in the first place.

Falling asleep, he makes up his mind, just like that. Grimmjow's presence offers safety and comfort, and he's not going to give that up for the world. The following days, even as he is deprived of regular meals, he keeps returning to the warehouse, even as the situation at home grows worse and worse.

He can endure it just fine. He's found a friend he doesn't have to share with anyone, someone unbelievably strong and upright in his own taciturn way. Maybe not even so much a friend; more like an older brother. He even starts talking less and less with Tatsuki, distancing himself more and more from his classmates in favor of interacting with Grimmjow.

Another week passes like this, the best week he's had in ages. Grimmjow doesn't show any particular signs about warming up to him, but he doesn't show any signs of minding his presence either. Most of the time, it's just Ichigo asking questions, Grimmjow answering them (sometimes a bit impatiently) and the two of them exchanging quips or insults until the week has passed. More than ever, Ichigo wishes he was older. Grimmjow treats him like a kid, and he _is _a kid, but he wants to stand on equal ground with the man, and right now, that's impossible.

"You shouldn't get attached to me." Grimmjow says one day as he's sitting on the edge of the rooftop, the air chilly as it's a late afternoon at the end of November. Ichigo sits next to him, and his eyes go wide at the statement. "I won't be here forever."

"What? Where will you go?" Ichigo immediately asks, alarmed, his voice a pitch higher because of it. "You're not leaving that soon, are you?"

Grimmjow turns his body towards him at this, eyebrows furrowed deeply. "You're one messed up kid. Shouldn't you be hanging out with other boys your age? Or, hell, just people that are actually alive?"

Ichigo presses his lips together in a firm line, scowling up at the spirit. "Why should I? I like being friends with you."

Grimmjow narrows his eyes. "We ain't friends, kid."

Ichigo tries not to show it, but the remark hurts him. It must've shown in his eyes anyway, or maybe the way he cringed slightly, because Grimmjow lets out an irritated sigh.

"W-well…" Ichigo glowers up at him. "Well, I consider you my friend, so deal with it, shitty old man!"

"Che, you can't just go off deciding that on your own, shitty brat."

"Yes I can. I just did." Ichigo sticks out his tongue at him and Grimmjow reaches out his hand, flicking his forehead with a finger, a sharp but brief pain shooting through Ichigo's head. "Ow! That hurt, you jerk!"

"Good."

"I take it back. I don't wanna be friends anymore."

"Fine with me." Grimmjow returns to looking out over the city. The wound he had a weak ago has faded to a faint scar, and all the other cuts on his arms have healed as well. Is that why he's leaving? Because he's healed up now? "I won't be here tomorrow."

The remark hits him like a lightning strike, and Ichigo swears he can hear something in his chest crack at the thought of the spirit's absence. Things would revert to how they were before, where his days are dreary with no silver linings in sight, and it's selfish, but he doesn't want that. Being all alone again, well, anything is better than that.

Grimmjow glances at him and scowls. "Don't give me that look."

"You can't just _leave_!" Ichigo exclaims desperately, making wild hand gestures. "We just met, and… and I…"

"I can't stay here." Grimmjow replies sharply, getting impatient. "I don't belong here."

Ichigo knows that. He has known that from the beginning, but he still doesn't want Grimmjow to leave so soon. It's just been little over a week, and Ichigo is certain that once Grimmjow leaves, he's never going to see the spirit again. Just having found a friend like this, the thought pains him more than he can articulate.

"But I…" he trails off, staring down at his feet despondently.

"But _what_?" Grimmjow snaps, clearly fed up with the conversation.

Ichigo is quiet for a moment, fingers digging into the fabric of his pants. "I'm gonna say something really embarrassing," he mutters, trying to gather up his courage as he takes a deep breath. "You know, I never had many friends, and… and I never had a sibling, but you're… you're like an older—"

A deafening roar pulses through the warehouse and interrupts him mid-sentence, the sheer force of it shattering whatever is left of the windows. Ichigo nearly falls off the edge, grabbing onto the ledge and steadying himself with a yelp, instinctive fear jump-starting his heartbeat into an insane race. Beside him, Grimmjow is already up on his feet, but he looks calm and collected—bored, almost.

"Wh-what…?" Ichigo looks up at the spirit, eyes wide with fright and confusion.

"Stay here." Grimmjow replies curtly, and jumps off.

Before Ichigo realizes it, the spirit is already gone. "Grimmjow!" he calls out futilely, looking down to where the man jumped off to, but finding no sign of him, the street below empty. He knows the wise thing to do would be to listen to the man's order, but Ichigo isn't the type to just sit around and wait.

Barely containing his panic, he scrambles off the ledge and runs towards the stairs. There's a thick wave of energy of something else in the vicinity, and he can't pinpoint it, but it's close. Really close.

He almost trips off the stairs with how fast he's hurrying down. By the time he arrives at ground floor, he can feel the other presence having drawn even nearer to where he is. What was that terrible scream? It sounded like something between human and animal, agonized and furious at the same time.

Edging towards the door leading out to the back-alley, he slowly pushes it open. When he finds the coast is clear, he slips outside, only then realizing that he forgot his schoolbag on the rooftop. Oh, heck. He'll have to come back for it later.

The streets around the warehouse are abandoned, as they tend to be. The sky is in twilight, and aside from what just happened, this could've been a very tranquil afternoon. Ichigo walks around the corner of the warehouse, and picks up loud noises echoing from the street down the block, across from where he's standing. It's akin to what you might hear at a construction site, when they're wrecking a building.

Before he can take another step, there's another roar, and a giant, black figure shoots out of the alleyway, rolling over the ground as if it had been thrown, destroying the road and leaving a track of ruined pavement and rubble in its tumble.

_'What the hell is that?!' _

Ichigo is petrified as he watches the… animal? Is it an animal? It looks like a monster straight out of a horror story, with a giant mouth and multiple arms and legs, a white mask on its face. Whatever it is, he knows he has to get away from it, _now_. If only he'd just listened to Grimmjow, if he'd just stayed upstairs then he would've been safe. Maybe he can still sneak back? It doesn't look like the thing has seen him yet.

Taking a step back, his heel presses onto a shard of cracked glass, the sound sharp and damning.

The monster turns its head, and looks directly at him.


	4. MEMORY

**Note:** I wasn't going to update this before Sunday but the response I got for the last chapter made me impatient to upload this one. Thank you so much for all the kind reviews, they really make my day much brighter! I'm a bit sad that I can't reply to some of them (either because they're anonymous or the PM thingy is disabled) so I'll just leave this general note here that I appreciate every single review tremendously, and it really brings me joy to know that people out there find pleasure in this little work I've spent so much time on planning and writing. I get all giddy whenever I get an alert saying that someone reviewed the story :p So, in short, you guys rock! Also note that the chapter after this one will be told in Grimmjow's POV, so you have that to look forward to!

* * *

><p><strong>IV: MEMORY<strong>

Ichigo's heart jumps into his throat, muscles and airways paralyzed by fear. The wild beast lunges with its jaws spread open wide, running towards him with a howl that makes his eardrums ache. That's when the boy finally snaps out of his catatonic state as if someone flipped a switch in his head and his vocal cords start working again. A scream bursts through his lips as he runs as fast as he can, the monster at his heels.

This is way worse than being chased by any bully. He might actually die. That thing might actually _kill him_.

He can't outrun it. It was stupid of him to try, anyway. The monster's leaps catch up to him almost instantly, its giant paws sending tremors through the soil, and Ichigo can feel its teeth snapping at his back.

Is he going to die here? Is he going to get eaten?

The feeling of nausea is overpowered by the kind of fear that feels like sharp nails clawing down his back, cold sweat breaking out on his skin and his heart pumping blood on record speed, feeling as if its thumping alone might shatter his ribs in how violent it is. He can feel it pounding in his head, like a horrible drumbeat counting down the seconds to the end.

This is it. He feels the teeth rip through the back of his shirt. _This is it._

Just as he squeezes his eyes shut and prepares for the gruesome blow, legs still sprinting, he hears a horrible crunching of bone right behind him accompanied by a wet, gushing noise. He comes to a halt slowly, eventually stopping several feet away, giving his lungs finally the opportunity to continue working.

For a moment he thinks that the monster did bite into him and his brain is just slow on catching up on it, but when the looks over his shoulder, breath as heavy as steam, what he sees is something completely different.

Grimmjow stands there as if a hunter having just slain a lion with his spear, his fist cracked into the creature's mask from where purple goo is pouring out, an annoyed look on his face as if he's dealing with a persistent insect. The fist that is crammed firmly into the beast's body starts glowing red. Crimson light bursts from his hand, and Ichigo can only gawk as the monster disintegrates with a last, dying howl, vanishing into dust.

It's as if he's standing in the midst of a fairy tale, having just witnessed the hero of the story slay the dragon. It leaves an enormous impact on Ichigo's young mind, as it symbolizes everything he strives for; pure strength, the power to protect. Sure, the monster in his mind is a different one from the beast that just tried taking an actual bite out of him, but the idea behind it is the same. He wants to be at least as strong as Grimmjow one day.

"Tch," the spirit himself looks aggravated, directing his scalding glare to Ichigo and making the boy flinch. "Thought I told you to stay upstairs, shitty brat."

"It worked out fine, didn't it?" Ichigo murmurs, breath still heavy. "Besides, what was that thing? It was _huge_!"

"Something you should stay away from."

"Is that why you said it's safer up there?" the boy questions as Grimmjow turns around and starts walking away. He's nearly jogging to keep up with the man's lazy but long strides. "Because of monsters like that?"

Grimmjow doesn't reply to that, but Ichigo assumes it is a yes, which is a bit confusing. Grimmjow easily dealt with the situation, he's clearly not scared—is there something else threatening him?

"Go home, brat. It's getting late."

"I forgot my bag upstairs." Ichigo responds, adding carefully, "Could you, um, give me a lift?" A sudden exhaustion starts pulling down on his muscles like gravity, and he really doesn't feel like climbing up all those steps again.

From the displeased quirk of the corners of Grimmjow's mouth, Ichigo can tell he's really pushing it. He's almost expecting a no, until the spirit grabs him by the waist with one arm and slings him over his shoulder as if he weighs nothing. When Grimmjow jumps, Ichigo feels like he's soaring, and when he thinks about how this might be the last time he gets to experience it, his mood takes a big blow for the worst.

The cool wind of the jump is heaven to his heated skin, and he catches a glimpse of the cityscape as they fly up, the many lights beaming in a gradually increasing darkness getting him into a depressed mood when he realizes he'll likely never have this experience again.

They land on the rooftop and Grimmjow drops him on the ground carelessly, right next to his bag, the boy wincing briefly but not making a sound. "Now get going."

Ichigo stares up at him from his spot on the ground, shoulders hunched. "Are you gonna be here tomorrow?"

"No," Grimmjow replies brusquely, the reply making the boy's fingers curl into fists.

"So that's it? I'm never gonna see you again?"

The spirit sits back down on the ledge, elbows resting on his knees. He looks at the boy in an annoyed sort of puzzlement, as if he cannot understand why Ichigo could be upset about this.

"What's wrong with you, kid? You touched in the head or something?"

Ichigo's jaw clenches down hard, his bottom lip starting to quiver.

"Shit, are you gonna start crying?"

He blinks rapidly, trying to work the tears down that have started making his eyes watery.

Grimmjow groans at the sight of it, rubbing his forehead in apparent frustration."For fuck's sake," he mumbles to himself, before looking back down to Ichigo with a scowl. "Man up, you fucking wimp. Knights don't cry."

Taking a deep breath, the boy swallows down the lump in his throat; Grimmjow is right, knights don't cry. They never cry, they're strong, even in the face of loss.

But that doesn't mean he can't be sad.

"Listen up, Kurosaki," the man says sternly and Ichigo's sadness is overtaken by shock. It's the first time Grimmjow has called him by his name. "You ain't a bad kid. Annoyingly stubborn, and probably a little dim-witted, but you got fire in ya. It's a good quality to have, it'll take you places if you're determined enough.

"So if you don't have a home, build one for yourself. If you want comrades, give people a reason to follow you. No one's gonna hold your hand and walk you through life. You gotta walk alone."

Ichigo sniffs quietly, wiping the wetness away from his lashes, his breathing erratic. He's listening to what Grimmjow is saying, but all he's hearing is that this is a goodbye and he won't see the man ever again. Grimmjow is going to leave and never return, leaving the boy behind in a life with no home and no family. He doesn't want that. He doesn't want to walk alone.

"Take me with you!" he exclaims, standing up with an almost angry glare. It's not fair. Why does he have to be left behind?

Grimmjow shakes his head. "Where I'm going ain't no place for a brat like you."

"But—"

"You're one crazy little shit," Grimmjow says, the harsh look on his face making place for slight amusement as well as irritation. "My home is a dead man's land. Weaklings like you don't belong there."

_Weakling_. That's how Grimmjow still sees him. A weak, whiny little kid who knows nothing of the world.

Trying to regain some of his pride in front of Grimmjow, Ichigo tries calming himself down and crosses his arms over his chest, sad gaze aimed at the ground. He'll prove the spirit wrong, and then Grimmjow will regret not taking him with, consequences be damned.

"So this is goodbye?"

A smack upside the head makes him yelp, and he looks up to see Grimmjow's admonishing gaze. "Idiot. You get depressed way too easily. Stop sulking."

"But if you leave," Ichigo replies pleadingly, "if you leave then I—"

"If you wanna see me again," Grimmjow interrupts him curtly, "then get stronger. That's all there is to it."

"As if it would be that easy!" Ichigo snaps with a pout, glaring down at his feet. He only looks up again when Grimmjow gets off the ledge and stands up, kneeling down to get on eye-level with the boy.

"You'll be fine, idiot." he says, his gaze sincere, and Ichigo can feel himself choking up again, but tries to keep his composure, back straight and chin up. "'Sides, a dead guy like me would make for a shit older brother."

Ichigo's lips contort as he tries to keep it all in even if it's starting to burst at the seams, and Grimmjow picks up his bag, handing it to him.

"Get going, you shitty brat." he orders, and although Ichigo wants to protest, wants to throw a tantrum and scream and whine, the resolute look on the spirit's face makes his defiance crumble, and all he can do is nod shakily, bag clutched to his side.

Knights follow orders.

He turns around, and with lead in his feet he starts walking towards the stairs. It takes every ounce of his will-power not to turn around because he knows if he even catches a glimpse of the man now he'll go running back and begging to be taken along. That's a humiliation he refuses to suffer. He has to be strong.

Somehow, he manages to make it down the stairs, going a step at a time, his heart sinking further down with each. It feels like hours have passed by the time he reaches the ground floor and Grimmjow's aura starts fading, their goodbye finally sinking in.

Stepping outside, the air feels colder than it should and the sky seems to lack its usual color. It feels like his bag is filled with stones and his chest is heavy.

Walking down the street, he only stops twice.

The first time, when he looks over his shoulder, Grimmjow is still there. Sitting high up on the ledge, looking out over the city as if it belongs to him—for the first time, he really does look like a king.

The second time, when he's near the end of the street and about to turn a corner and he looks again, Grimmjow is gone.

* * *

><p><em>"So that's it? I'm never gonna see you again?"<em>

With a flick of his index finger, the air rips apart into a black hole, the Garganta like an empty void welcoming him back inside. The fresh air of Karakura Town that's riddled with pure, small flecks of light reiatsu clashes with the dark out-pour from the Hollow homeworld, and for a moment, Grimmjow pauses, glimpsing a last time at the city.

Somewhere down below, he knows, a small child is on his way back home, sorrowful from his parting with a monster similar to (albeit more evolved than) the one that tried to eat him earlier.

It is difficult for him to understand how a kid like that could form such a strong attachment to him. He must've known of Grimmjow's true nature, he must've sensed some of it, but it didn't deter him in the least. He still latched onto him, as if the Arrancar was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Humans really are fucking incomprehensible.

_"If you wanna see me again, then get stronger. That's all there is to it."_

Maybe, some day…

Grimmjow shakes the thought off, and steps into the Garganta.

* * *

><p>When he arrives home, it takes approximately three seconds for Mrs. Fukui to find him and start yelling at him for being late again. Instead of flinching or taking a submissive posture, this time, Ichigo ignores her. He can't do this, not now, not when he just suffered the loss of a friend.<p>

This behavior startles her, he can tell from the way her screaming starts getting louder and more nonsensical. She's used to seeing him apologize over and over and act much like a kicked puppy as he's dragged up to his room. This time he doesn't even wait for her and goes up the stairs on his own accord.

His blood boils more and more with each step he takes. Whatever he does, it's either not good enough, or a complete disappointment, a reason for Mrs. Fukui to yell at him and belittle him. As if he were her property, just there for her to take her frustrations out on whenever she felt like it.

"Are you listening?! LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!" she screeches, face burning up red from anger.

Having reached the top of the stairs, the anger pulses palpably through his skull and his synapses sizzle.

Ichigo takes a deep breath that burns like fire through his throat, spins around to look down at her, and for the first time, he screams.

"SHUT_ UP_!"

The deafening silence in the house feels like a sweet relief, offering him immense satisfaction in finally having been the one who caused it, the one who ended up being in control. She looks at him as if he just slapped her in the face, her expression frozen in a state of fury beyond words and sheer horror.

He doesn't wait for a retort and storms off to his room, slamming his door shut for good measure. Not a squeak from Mrs. Fukui.

Is this the way to live? Fighting to win, in every aspect of his life? He fought his bullies and it resulted in a crushing victory. He just fought Mrs. Fukui, and even though it was a single act of defiance, it worked. Maybe trying to avoid conflict isn't how the world works. No, it's clear to him now that the world is a very cruel place; the existence of Hueco Mundo, the fights Grimmjow got into that resulted in such deep wounds, the way Ichigo has been targeted by other kids, it all has culminated into this single message in his mind.

Fighting to win is the only way to survive. Fighting to survive will eventually kill you. It's not good enough anymore to play the nice guy.

He sits down on his bed, trying to picture Grimmjow's face inside his mind. He's spent so much time staring up at him that it's difficult to imagine a frontal view.

Then he remembers, during their goodbye, the spirit _knelt down _to his level. The more he thinks about it, the more stunning it really is. Grimmjow is a king, maybe not in the real sense but certainly in Ichigo's eyes, and kings rarely kneel.

The realization works as a double-edged sword, sweet bitterness at understanding that regardless of the man's behavior, in the end, he did care to some extent. He cared about the weak, whiny little kid.

And now he's gone.

_"You gotta walk alone."_

He will. He'll get stronger, so strong that he doesn't need anyone else to walk with him. He won't depend on anyone else, he'll fight and he'll win by himself, live for himself, uphold the principles he believes in. He'll be noble, and kind, and he'll protect those that can't do it by themselves so that they won't have to go through what he did.

Grimmjow became a king. He set the goalpost.

Now it's up to Ichigo to reach it.

* * *

><p>Time trickles down smoothly, days dropping down like rain that gets washed away into the gutter, irreversible. The image of his face, the color of his eyes, the wildness of his hair all gradually fades.<p>

It takes him weeks to forget the exact design of that intimidating mask with its jagged fangs. It takes him months until he can't remember what that rough baritone sounded like to his ears. It takes him years to have trouble recalling the exact shade of half-lidded eyes. Even that signature crazed smirk, with all its sharp teeth and wicked mischief, becomes just a memory.

Ichigo still clings to it as much as he can, as that same memory is his only driving force that ever motivates him anymore. Everything else just seems like white noise, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and ultimately not worth wasting his time or energy on. All that matters is that he pushes forward.

The bullies have gotten bigger and stronger, but seldom do they engage him unless they have an overwhelming amount of numbers; no few than ten, and even then victory isn't assured. Everyone knows about the Kurosaki kid, the demon in the dojo who'll knock you on your ass before you ever see him coming. His fighting style is brutal, offers no mercy, has a raw power about it that's not applied entirely recklessly. Kurosaki knows how to control it, and that's what scares them the most. Lethal effectiveness.

Oh, he's definitely grown in many ways. He's taller, he fights more, he scowls more, he talks back more, and somehow, at some point, he finds himself surrounded by people by the time he turns thirteen and enters the 8th grade.

Tatsuki has always been there, but as he enters junior high a pair of odd friends attach themselves to him despite his rumored "delinquent" behavior. Mizuiro Kojima has no sense of fear and Keigo Asano clearly has a death wish. Ichigo isn't sure what to do with them or what to think of them, and settles on accepting their presence for lack of a better idea.

Then there's Yasutora Sado, or as Ichigo calls him, Chad. A foreign kid with a name Ichigo has a tendency to misread, instead preferring a simple nickname that sticks. Chad is a bit different to him than his other friends, mostly because he is strong. He's a fighter. Ichigo respects that, considers him more of an equal, closer to a friend than anyone else has ever been. They beat up wannabe gangsters together and always have each other's backs; to him, this is what friendship should be like.

Despite all these developments in his social life, some things have remained the same, or even taken a turn for the worst.

Ever since he became fed up with his situation at home four years ago, everything has gone downhill. Some factors were entirely out of his control; his adoptive father being fired for committing fraud is one example, but seeing as how Ichigo is now the scapegoat at home, it's all taken out on him.

Mrs. Fukui's temper gets more volatile with each and every passing day. Mr. Fukui starts drinking. They start fighting. Sometimes Mr. Fukui hits his wife, sometimes she hits him, and most of the time, Ichigo is smart enough to escape through his bedroom window whenever things get to that point. Mostly thanks to his quick wit and excellent reflexes, he's never been hit (and really, a drunken man's aim isn't the greatest to begin with) but that doesn't meant that it doesn't hurt.

Sure, whatever they had before wasn't much of a home, but at least it was tranquil in its own way. A void, perhaps, but preferable to the constant hostility he finds in every corner of the house whenever he arrives from school. So naturally, he starts going home less and less, doing his homework in the school's library and staying outside until the late evening hours, managing to sneak some food up to his room from whatever is left from that night's dinner. Other times, he stays over at Chad's place. His adoptive parents never seem to care enough to ask, not that he expected anything else.

His friends know there's some problems at home, but they don't have the courage to ask. Chad and Tatsuki are the only ones who attempted bringing it up a few times, but after being snappily shut down with an irritated glare from Ichigo, they know not to venture there again.

Amidst all of this (studying hard, beating up punks, avoiding home), sometimes he still thinks about Grimmjow when he sees a lost spirit wandering around the town, or when he happens to pass through the districts filled with warehouses. He always wonders what has become of the man, what he's up to in that purgatory called Hueco Mundo.

When he's feeling really nostalgic, he tries to picture Grimmjow sitting on the edge of a tall building, wind-swept hair as blue as ever, gaze deceptively bored, ruffled jacket hiding little of his toned muscles.

Whenever he does picture it, there's a sharp twinge of sadness in his chest that outweighs the gratitude, and so he turns away.

Time trickled down smoothly, _too _smoothly, days dropping down like dead leaves that get blown away by the wind, irreversible. His face, his eyes, his hair, his voice, his smirk, his confidence, his dominance, his cynicism, his strength—

It's faded, but it will always remain.


	5. CHANGE

**Note:** Dammit you guys. I can't maintain a freaking schedule if you force me to keep updating early with your awesome support. Thank you all so much, and have fun with this next chapter!

* * *

><p><strong>V: CHANGE<strong>

The sand has always been a solid constant in his life. It buries him in its storms, scorches the bottom of his feet, delights in making him slip off dunes and roll to the bottom of a valley, grains slipping into the most unpleasant places imaginable. It hides the prowlers, swallows the weak and elevates the strong.

Yeah, he's fucking sick of the sand. It surrounds his whole world, enveloping his fellow inhabitants with a sense of hopelessness, a sense of unjust damnation.

Once upon a time, he looked out over the deserts and thought, '_I will make this mine'_. He saw glory in this impossible quest—or rather, it was glorious because of its impossibility. Sweet fruit hanging down the branches, just low enough for him to graze his fingertips on it, but not low enough to pluck.

Now the fruit is rotting and he can't recall what made him so hell-bent on conquering these ever-shifting plains in the first place.

He'll still do it, though. There's nothing else for him to do. Nothing else left.

The memory of the city lights stays with him as he travels, footsteps quickly erased by a strong wind howling over the white sand and against his body, as if attempting to blow him down. The only light here radiates from the crescent moon hanging above, untouched and solemn in an abyss of black. Nevertheless, this gloomy view is still preferable to the artificial dome of Las Noches that emulates a mockery of the sky in the human world.

Now he's actually seen it, if there is one thing he likes the most from that world, it is certainly its sky. It shifts constantly, an endless cycle of sun, moon, stars, rain, light, clouds, and even rainbows on one occasion, the scattering light like a painter's palette.

Maybe it's not even that human sky he longs for. Maybe what he longs for is the same reason he was the first and probably _only _Arrancar to turn on its creator, even if it had been a suicide attempt which he miraculously survived only due to his quick wits and reflexes, a cat barely managing to land on its feet after a reckless jump.

A part of him is definitely envious of those humans, who ruined the bursting colors of sunset and sunrise with their horrid skyscrapers, unappreciative of what they were given. Instead they choose to scurry around in their little nest of metal and stone like a swarm of ants—what did _they _ever accomplish to deserve such a treasure? They're born in a place that welcomes them with open arms unconditionally, whereas his world continuously tries to kill its newborns.

And what do they do with this generous, beautiful world of theirs? They maim it with the noise of machines, fumes from factories, blissfully oblivious and willfully ignorant. They're such weak, pathetic creatures; the very thought that he once used to be part of that anthill sickens him.

Stopping near a large formation of rocks, Grimmjow slips into its shadows and sits down against the cold stone, taking a deep breath through his nostrils.

Small flames of black fire are wandering around the area, but scurry away as soon as they notice his presence. That won't do, of course. Grimmjow needs to eat, needs to regain his strength before he's found by Aizen's lackeys. Chasing off every potential snack heading his way is a bad idea.

He closes his eyes, breathing slowing down, reiatsu reeled in and suppressed, and he waits. He can be extraordinarily patient during a hunt, and he cannot afford to waste energy by tracking the prey down. He'll have to let them come to him.

It is still an uncomfortably vulnerable position, though. Would just be his shit luck if a strong Arrancar wound up finding him like this. Not like most of them are a threat; they wouldn't stand a chance against him. Hell, even any Espada ranked below him would be easily taken care of, but if he runs into, say, Ulquiorra—

Cursing at the memory, his hand reflexively presses onto the scar left below his rib-cage that still burns, on his right side. That cut nearly killed him. He'd tanked it, underestimating the strength put behind it in favor of trapping the Cuatro with a Caja Negación, locking him up in an alternate dimension for a few hours. Usually he wouldn't have taken this much damage from a tussle with that guy, but the stupid fucking bat had been ordered to _kill_. As much as Grimmjow talks trash, he knows his limits, and he knows when it's in his best interest for a tactical retreat.

In other words, to get the fuck away.

He can't really say why he rebelled in the first place. It was the pointlessness of it all, he supposes. Here Aizen assembled this great army, and what's he doing with it? Just sitting around, waiting for the enemies to catch on and invade?

Grimmjow wasn't named the Espada of Destruction for shits and giggles; it's in his blood, it's what he craves. Destruction is change. Change like the human sky, but also sudden, brutal, and violent change—that's the root of his need for destruction. He hates constancy, especially the kind that has him subservient to some Shinigami piece of shit with a God-complex.

In the end, he supposes that's why he left to the human world, among other reasons. It was also the main reason why, in the two weeks he spent there, he tolerated the presence of the whiny, weak little boy who found him and clung to him like glue. The orange-haired brat provided a change of pace, but like all things, eventually Grimmjow grew bored of it. His wound was sufficiently healed, and he saw no further reason to stay. The brat could entertain only for so long, and his typical little human troubles didn't concern Grimmjow much.

Sure, there was potential there, he recognized as much. Great potential, in fact—the kid could grow up to become someone truly worth fighting in a battle to the death. There's something about his reiatsu that's different than anything he ever sensed before, as he had plenty of time to pick apart its composition during the two weeks the brat had followed him about. There was something about it that was similar to his own, yet opposite at the same time. A wild contradiction that puzzles him more than the kid's unhealthy attachment to his person.

In the end, though, it started getting old, and once more, he desired change, back to a more familiar pace. The peaceful days in the human world offered good rest, but it's not anything that could ever hold his attention for longer than a brief period of time. His lust for battle is not something easily placated, and definitely not by a human child either.

A black flame of Hollow reiatsu inches closer and interrupts his musings, unaware of the danger lurking on the other side of the rock formation. Grimmjow pushes himself up off the ground, moving quietly in the shadows. He wouldn't have to be feeding like this had Ulquiorra not practically speared him. His regeneration was never the best, most of it traded in for more power and tougher skin, leaving him vulnerable in moments like these. Eating isn't going to be very pleasant.

As he moves, he feels the wound starting to throb, making him wince slightly and grit his teeth at the sharp pain. Fuck it, he really needs the boost. If that means going back to the old days and getting blood all over him, fine.

Rounding the rock formation, he takes a casual glance around the corner, spotting a slender, tall, green-skinned and humanoid looking Hollow with its back to him. Big mistake.

Grimmjow waits for a second or so more, in case the shit decides to conveniently turn around before he can make his stealth kill and cause a ruckus. It looks like the Hollow is surveying its area, but it hasn't detected the former Sexta just yet.

Speaking of which, he should get rid of that fucking tattoo already. Maybe find new clothes as well, though that seems unlikely in this kind of environment, but he'd really like to get rid of the fucking uniform. There's nothing wrong with walking around naked in principle, since it's not like most Hollows give a shit about nudity, but he's gotten too used to clothes now, and walking around with his cock and balls hanging out just seems too crude, even for him. He supposes that as far as the clothes go, at the moment, he doesn't have any other choice.

He steps out from around his cover, disappears for a split-second and reappears instantly with his fist torn through the Hollow's lower abdomen. The creature makes a gurgling noise before it slides off Grimmjow's blood-soaked forearm and collapses on the sand.

Bending down, the solitary predator tears the arm of the Hollow's corpse off, sharp teeth digging into the flesh and ripping it into his mouth chunk by chunk, crouched low as he eats up to the bone, the reiatsu pouring into his system.

Back when he was an Adjuchas, he could just clamp his strong panther jaws down onto his prey's neck and eat from its reiatsu like that, if the prey was small enough for it. He's not in his animal form anymore, though, so now he has to eat like a human. It's way too fucking troublesome and takes far too long, not to mention that it tastes a lot more disgusting than he remembers, but he has no choice.

He devours both of the arms and large chunks of the Hollow's torso after cutting it up, but before even reaching the lower half, his appetite bails on him and he stands up, leaving the corpse to turn into dust and spitting out a mouth full of blood, both the remnant of his Hollow mask and the lower half of his face smeared in it.

If nothing else, it has given his regeneration a good kick. He can feel the internal damage left from his wounds quickly healing again, and he reaches around to touch his back to deal with his other problem. The tattoo.

He could burn it off with a Cero, but that would leave an ugly scar that his regeneration can't heal. If he just cuts off the skin, it should eventually regrow without a mark on it—but for that, he needs more fuel. More food.

Turning away from the rock formation, he picks a direction at random, and walks.

* * *

><p>It's easy to forget about time when the sky never changes. He doesn't care to keep track of it, anyway. Instead he eats, heals, trains, eats more, heals more, and without realizing it, years have already passed.<p>

Eventually, he is found.

And it is a shock to both of them when Ulquiorra reacts slower to his attacks than before.

Grimmjow had a bit of fun fucking up the Forest of Menos. A bit too much fun, probably; he killed all the Adjuchas guarding it, as well as some Shinigami guy nearby who apparently had been left stranded here. None of them made for satisfactory opponents, not after the months and months of rigorous training he did to build up his strength even more than before, taking on the strongest evolved Hollows he could find outside of Las Noches, killing one after the other without pause for rest or feeding, pushing his stamina to the limit.

It's a fucking wonder they didn't find him sooner, or maybe they didn't care to. Probably didn't see him as a threat. When he practically chased all the Gillian-class Menos out of the Forest, however, they sent someone after him.

None other than the Cuatro, of course.

And yet, why does it feel like Ulquiorra has grown weaker?

Exchanging blows with him in the forest, surrounded by giant trees made of a silvery quartz substance, Grimmjow compares this encounter with the one they had a long while ago. There, undoubtedly, Ulquiorra had the upper hand. Now, it seems the opposite is true. Grimmjow's reflexes are sharper somehow, more strength behind his blade, more reiatsu that clashes violently against the enemy.

"What's the matter, Ulquiorra?" Grimmjow taunts him after having ripped through the Cuatro's shirt, revealing the tattoo on his chest, while he himself has a long cut on his cheek. "You got weaker while I was away?"

Ulquiorra's face is blank as usual. Constantly blank. It's probably the thing he despises most about the man, next to looking at the '4' inked onto his white skin. His own tattoo of Sexta Grimmjow got rid of a long time ago—now being the only rogue Arrancar in Hueco Mundo, walking alone. What became of his Fracción he doesn't know nor does he care to know; they were all too weak to keep up with him to begin with. It's fine this way. He doesn't need anyone else. He's become so strong in that short amount of time to where he can now almost completely overpower Ulquiorra in a clean fight.

The Cuatro's blade cuts through the air in a swing that aims for Grimmjow's neck, who smacks it away with Pantera and aims it to pierce his opponent's chest—parried narrowly, the tip of it cuts over Ulquiorra's shoulder instead. Grimmjow intends to pull it down and slice his opponent's shoulder clean off, but the man's blade blocks him.

It's just what he wanted. With Ulquiorra occupied by pushing back against Pantera, there's an opportunity.

Grimmjow raises his free hand. "No, that's not it, you couldn't have gotten _that _much weaker," he answers his own question with a gleeful smirk, crimson light gathering in his palm, Ulquiorra's eyes widening minutely. "Maybe I just got stronger!"

The Cero fires off and for a moment he has no idea if it worked or not; dodging it point black had to have been impossible even for the Cuatro, but he doubts the stupid bat would kick the bucket just from that. As the light fades out and the dust settles, Grimmjow finds him a few feet away, the edges of his jacket and patches of skin on his arms singed but otherwise unharmed, his own finger still stretched out.

So he countered it with one of his own.

The smirk on Grimmjow's face is so wide it's starting to make his jaws hurt, but he can't help himself as he lunges for the bat once more, lashing out in a frenzy of bloodlust with Ulquiorra barely blocking each rapid attack. Pantera grazes over Ulquiorra's chest, cutting through the number 4 tattoo—it is a shallow cut, but the delightful little symbolic jab at Aizen makes Grimmjow cackle madly, like a slightly deranged child with a shiny new toy. This sheer _power _he suddenly has over the Cuatro feels so good it's damn near arousing.

"What's wrong, Ulquiorra?!" Grimmjow yells as his opponent dodges the next blow aimed at his face and distances himself with Sonido, the cut marring his tattoo bleeding lightly, soaking the lower half of the number in blood as it trails down his chest. "At this rate you'll get skewered!"

"Foolish, nothing but meaningless bravado," Ulquiorra replies slowly, voice as monotonous as ever, green eyes unnervingly steady and unchanging. "You'll regret getting in Lord Aizen's way, trash."

"Che, wanna make good on that promise?" Grimmjow scoffs unimpressed, lips curled in a mocking sneer.

Ulquiorra decides to take him up on that taunt.

"Imprison, _Murciélago_."

* * *

><p>What the fuck happened back there?<p>

"Dammit," he hisses, the action prompting a coughing fit that splatters blood all over the ground he's sitting on, hiding behind one of the few trees left in the Forest of Menos.

Why the fuck did no one tell him that there's this fucking thing called a _Segunda Etapa_? And why the fuck did that asshole have to be the one to have discovered it, out of all Arrancar? Next time he gets to his inner world he's going to flay Pantera for not mentioning this, that worthless shitsack of a fucking cat.

The both of them in their initial Resurrección forms, Grimmjow maintained a slight edge—the stupid bat was rusty from all that doing nothing in Las Noches. While Grimmjow fought to increase his strength, all the Espada pretty much sat on their asses in their little palace and did jack all. It's only natural that his base skills are more developed.

Even so, that advantage was decimated when Ulquiorra pulled out his second form. Before that, Grimmjow managed before to maim his left arm, sever the tendons in his right leg and cut through his right shoulder (his own wounds ranging from severely burned claws from blocking a Cero Oscuras, multiple cuts on his torso and a limp in his step from injuries).

All of that was wiped away as Ulquiorra transformed, regenerated all the damaged limbs, and ended up overpowering him with ease. His _Lanza del Relámpago _alone wiped out a substantial amount of the forest they were fighting in, missing Grimmjow only because it was a technique so difficult to control.

After that show of power, the former Sexta practically high-tailed it out of there. He ain't gonna throw his life away, especially not to Ulquiorra; it severely wounded his pride, but he's not a _total _maniac. He doesn't have a death wish. The only option was to retreat.

Now he's bleeding profusely, there's a numbness in his left foot running up to an excruciating pain from a stab wound in his upper left leg, he can't move his claws anymore because of the burns, blood from a cut in his forehead keeps leaking into his eyes, he's sweating, aching, panting, exhausted—

Warm bile rises in his throat and his chest tightens in agony as he vomits a cup full of blood on the ground between his knees, intense vertigo making it hard to concentrate. Concussion, broken ribs, internal bleeding—let alone the rest of his injuries. He's fucked.

Dark reiatsu pulses from above, making him freeze, eyes wide. "Shit, fucking _shit_." Ulquiorra is looking for him. He can feel the Cuatro's reiatsu soaring above the forest, searching. Grimmjow has become quite the master in masking his presence for quick stealth attacks, but if he keeps sticking around, he'll be found.

Where can he run to? Hueco Mundo isn't safe with this bat flying about in search for him; no matter how far he goes Ulquiorra will track him down.

Unless he crosses worlds.

It's safe to assume no one knew where he fled when he left Las Noches last time. Opening up a Garganta would create a spike in reiatsu that Ulquiorra will no doubt detect, so he has to do it quickly, but the Cuatro definitely won't be able to know where he went.

He grits his teeth and decides he has no other option, slowly managing to push himself up off the ground, his muscles screaming in protest as he leans heavily against the silvery tree. Raising a shaky arm, he rips open the black portal.

There's a flapping of wings from above and Grimmjow practically throws himself through the Garganta, landing harshly. As it slowly closes behind him, the last thing he sees before that is a slender hand reaching out for him as if death itself is trying to drag him to hell, though the portal closes before that can happen.

Relief hits him like a flood, and as the adrenaline fades he manages to crawl out the other end with no energy left, heart pounding harshly against his bruised bones. He barely registers his surroundings as fresh air hits him, the reiatsu in it thin and hardly making it easier on him. There's the feel of grass on his skin and his Resurrección vanishes, the armor holding him together releasing the flow of blood that nearly chokes him as it fills his throat. Lying on his side, red-burned hands clamped over his wounds, his breathing is throaty and ragged.

How the fuck is he supposed to measure up against a monster like that? There's no way in hell he could even land a single scratch on Ulquiorra the way he is now. Damn it all.

'_Just wait, you bastard—when I come back for you I'll be stronger than ever, and I'll fucking crush you _and _that flying rodent form you call a Resurrección,' _is his last, spiteful thought before the blood loss becomes too much, and he fades out.

* * *

><p>Kisuke Urahara is, in every sense of the word, a true genius, but even he cannot fathom what could be so urgent for Isshin Shiba and Masaki Kurosaki's son to run through a red traffic-light and nearly cause a car accident, without even stopping to look at what's happening behind him.<p>

The former Shinigami took it upon himself to keep an eye on the kid ever since his folks passed away, every now and again. Most of what falls under that line of duty is to keep Hollows, who are always strongly drawn to the boy's reiatsu, away from him and his family. While doing this, Kisuke got to know him a bit better.

Ichigo used to be a lot like both his mother and his father, but with the kind of situation at home that he has, he became more and more reticent as time went on. Kisuke decided it was best that he not intervene—if he did, Ichigo would only be dragged into the mess of the never-ending battle of Shinigami versus Hollow, and perhaps even battles more complicated than that. Both of his parents desperately wanted their son to be able to grow up as a regular human, and who was he to disrupt that last dying wish?

Then again, four years ago, he did come dangerously close to interfering. Something extremely extraordinary happened; the boy found the runaway Arrancar before Kisuke did, and _befriended _him.

At the first sign of the Arrancar, Kisuke would say he was quite, er, startled. It was well-known, of course, that after Aizen's betrayal of Soul Society, the man had started building an army of Hollows in Hueco Mundo after causing quite the havoc in Soul Society itself before retreating to the Hollow homeworld.

Why an Arrancar would then randomly appear in Karakura Town was somewhat of a mystery to Kisuke; perhaps, he thought at the time, the Arrancar had been sent by Aizen to track Kisuke down. That seemed unlikely, however—Aizen could not want anything more from Kisuke, seeing as how he perfected his own version of the Hōgyoku and made it superior to the shopkeeper's. That was, after all, why he finally dropped the farce of kind-hearted Squad 5 Captain. He finally finished his research to an extent where he was confident it would aid him in his plans.

And indeed, as Kisuke observed the Arrancar for a while, he noticed the wounds, and the surprisingly low reiatsu. Far more likely did it seem to be that the Arrancar _defected_.

His suspicions were confirmed in a most unorthodox way; namely, Ichigo Kurosaki wandering in the lion's den and instead of cowering from the predator, merrily prancing over to pet its mane. Ichigo seemed not at all scared of the thick, dark, heavy reiatsu that radiated off the Arrancar, instead seeming to be curious more than anything else.

Kisuke wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't monitored the situation himself, but in the end, it seemed to be that there formed some sort of attachment between these two extremely unlikely people. One a Hollow that attained Shinigami powers, the other the result of a union between a Quincy tainted by a Hollow and a Shinigami, born a human—he would've never imagined it. One hybrid meeting another; it was probably one of the most extraordinary things he ever witnessed. Had the Arrancar still been working for Aizen, he wouldn't have been hanging around in an abandoned warehouse, tolerating the presence of a much-too-curious boy and wasting his time.

But, as all things, the unique relationship came to an end, and once more Kisuke took his distance. Over the past four years, Ichigo seems to have made quite the change of character. He's far more aggressive nowadays, easy to tick off, but a surprisingly bright student and almost unbearably protective of his friends. He rarely goes home, which Kisuke can't blame him for, considering the kind of unpleasant people his supposed guardians are.

Now, the shopkeeper finds himself tailing the thirteen year old once more, wondering what has the boy looking so worked up, his reiatsu fluctuating between tense and excited, bristling with energy.

Ichigo runs into the local park, and only as Kisuke follows does he pick up on what Ichigo has—it is extremely faint, so faint that he is shocked that the boy managed to sense it before him, but it is a flicker of familiar reiatsu.

Keeping to the shadows of the trees as he follows, sure enough, in the distance is a dot of white, blue and red collapsed on the grass in a small clearing.

"Grimmjow!" Ichigo nearly trips several times as he sprints as fast as he can, like his life depends on it, like the Arrancar's life depends on it, which it probably does. In all his frazzled haste the kid actually gets his foot caught and falls down to the ground, rolling over the grass for a few feet before scrambling up to his hands and knees and practically crawling the last bit of distance left to the severely injured Arrancar.

"_Grimmjow_! Wake up, hey! Sh-shit…" The sheer desperation on the boy's face is hard to look at as brown eyes gaze down in horror at all the blood pooling around the Arrancar, his knees soaking in it. Ichigo's hands don't know what to do, hovering just above the bloodied skin, trembling slightly. He touches on the Arrancar's cheek, then slips his fingers down to the pulse point on the Arrancar's neck. He lets out a breath of relief, probably having found a heartbeat, and then looks at the wounded creature's injuries.

The strangled, almost tortured noise the kid makes can only be an indication to the situation being pretty bad. "Just-just hang in there, I'll fix this, I'll fix you, somehow!" Ichigo carefully rolls the Arrancar onto his back, and even from that distance Kisuke can see the hopelessness in the kid's eyes that contradicts the determination in his voice.

Being the good guy that Kisuke is, he can't keep to observing for much longer, can he? Ichigo couldn't possibly ever live the life of a normal human after this anyway, so if he's going to end up becoming part of the mess between the two spiritual worlds, he might as well have someone to guide him through it instead of being thrown off into the deep end.

And it's just sad to watch the otherwise so fierce, headstrong kid practically suffer an internal nervous breakdown as he's being forced to watch his role model (as ridiculous as that notion is) bleed out on the ground. Kisuke watched the goodbye from four years ago—Ichigo truly believed he'd never see the Arrancar again. He can't imagine how painful this kind of reunion must be.

Besides, if that Arrancar really did defect from Aizen, he might have some information on Aizen's plans. It's worth the risk of saving him, at the very least.

So then, aiding a wounded potential enemy, eh?

Ah, well. He's done crazier things in the past.


	6. DEAL

**Note:** Thanks for all the lovely responses last time, I'll try to keep up a stream of steady updates! Also keep in mind that 13 year old Ichigo looks a lot like the one in canon at the beginning of the series, but is still a bit shorter and more boyish looking. Enjoy this next installment!

* * *

><p><strong>VI: DEAL<strong>

Soft. Warm. Numbness.

Those are the first three things Grimmjow's hazy mind registers as he cracks his eyelids open, muscles in his fingers flexing as his hands twitch, curling into the bed-covers underneath. His injuries don't hurt all that much anymore, but the drawback to that seems to be the stiffness and soreness that has taken the pain's place. His lips are dry and cracked, and even swallowing is a challenge to his abused throat that was spitting out blood not that long ago.

Above him is a simple, white ceiling, the light of a lamp ensuring the room he's in is well-lit. It takes a moment for his vision to focus itself properly, and before looking around, he closes his eyes again and allows his reiatsu to prod at his environment first, seeking out anyone nearby.

An odd mixture that is not quite Hollow and not quite Shinigami and yet both at the same time surprises him, and his eyes open instantly, head shifting to his right.

He's greeted with the sight of a mop of orange hair on his bedside that stills his movements completely.

Ichigo Kurosaki, sound asleep and oblivious to Grimmjow's awakening. He's sitting on a chair next to the bed with his upper body draped over the edge of the mattress, head supported by his arms that are folded underneath it.

Well, shit.

He's not sure what the appropriate reaction should be at seeing the brat again so soon—or not so soon? How long has it been? Time isn't a priority to a being that can live up to centuries if it survives; in comparison, human lives are akin to the duration of a single candle. Still, couldn't have been that long seeing as how the kid is still a kid.

When Grimmjow opened the Garganta, he knew he would end up somewhere in Karakura Town, but for this brat to find him _again_ just seems like a stupid joke from fate, or maybe it shouldn't be that much of a shock. The brat has reiatsu at his disposal; he probably sensed the wounded predator before anyone else.

Grimmjow's body tenses as he forces himself up, the simple exertion of sitting making his joints creak loudly and making it hard to breathe. He supports his weight with his hands leaning on the bed behind his back, sweat rolling down his forehead and spine. He feels feverish, too hot for comfort, a bit dizzy and nauseous. All in all, shitty.

Glancing down, he looks at the bandages covering his entire torso and arms, his lower body hidden underneath the blanket. Did the kid treat him?

His eyes drift to the sleeping boy beside him, and he can tell the brat has done some growing, both physically and spiritually. His reiatsu has increased substantially, practically pouring out into the room and nearly polluting the very air around them. Clearly the kid has either no idea how to control it, or doesn't give a shit; Grimmjow is betting on the former.

He considers his options carefully. With these injuries, even if they have been treated, he won't make it very far. Shit, he needs water. Food as well, but the Hollows that roam around these parts wouldn't sate him nearly as much as the stronger ones in Hueco Mundo. He'll just have to wait for his energy to come back on its own, but staying bedridden like this (and at the mercy of some human, no less) isn't the most appealing thing ever.

'_Don't have much of a choice,' _he thinks with a displeased scowl, eyeing the youth next to him with curiosity and annoyance. "Oi, wake up." His voice is hoarse, the sentence barely audible, and he clears his throat before trying again. "Wake up, brat!"

The sharp bark has Kurosaki snapping his head up, blinking slowly before he seems to catch on that his 'patient' has finally come to, and suddenly he's wide-awake, a huge smile lighting up his face that only accentuates his boyishness. Still a child, but definitely older than when Grimmjow last saw him. Early teens, he guesses.

"Grimmjow!" He looks so happy that Grimmjow half expects a tail to spontaneously sprout from his back and start wagging excitedly. The look the brat gives him makes him a bit uneasy. It's something he never understood about the human; why is he so attached to Grimmjow? Of all people to look up to, the Arrancar is on the bottom of that list of recommendations.

At Grimmjow's frown Kurosaki seems to gain some self-awareness, reeling his childlike joy in as his expression comes to mirror the Arrancar's own, albeit more concerned. "You okay?"

"_Fantastic_," Grimmjow sneers, popping the joints in his neck and rolling his shoulders, dull aches in his wounds making him flinch briefly.

"It's been a while," Kurosaki starts, a lopsided smirk trying to hide the genuine joy in his eyes. "I didn't think I'd see you again." The brat is itching to ask how Grimmjow ended up like this, he can tell, but for some reason, he's not asking. Did the kid actually learn some self-restraint while he was gone?

The expectant look in Kurosaki's eyes makes him realize the kid is waiting for him to say something. Grimmjow doesn't know what he ought to say, though. He supposes it's interesting to see how the brat has developed over the past who-knows-how-many-years, but it's not like he's keeping himself from jumping up and down in elation or something.

"You the one who found me, huh?" is all that comes to mind. A brief flash of disappointment passes on the kid's face, though it disappears just as fast as it came.

"Yeah," Kurosaki is notably quieter now; different from the nine year old Grimmjow first met who would've barraged him with questions. "Though Urahara is the one who helped me get you here, and Tessai treated your—"

Grimmjow tenses automatically at the mention of unfamiliar names, once more diverting his attention to sensing out any others in his vicinity. _Shinigami reiatsu_. A reflexive growl passes curled lips, and he throws off his blanket without thinking, slipping off the bed and standing up with some effort.

"Hey, you're supposed to stay in bed, idiot!" Kurosaki scolds him as he stands up as well, Grimmjow noting briefly that the kid has definitely undergone a growth spurt, the top of his head reaching Grimmjow's shoulders now as opposed to barely reaching his waist before. It's a bit disorienting—to him, it feels as if mere months have passed.

"I ain't staying in a Shinigami's nest," Grimmjow snaps, trying to will away the dizziness as he looks for Pantera. Fuck. Should've expected that; his sword is gone. "Bastards!"

"Look, Grimmjow," the brat starts, but finds himself ignored as Grimmjow starts walking towards the door, the sharp pain in his left leg still making him limp though he stubbornly ignores it. "Wait up, shitty old man!"

Kurosaki walks ahead of him and blocks his path, scowling deeply.

"Move, shitty brat." Grimmjow sneers back, a smidgen of amusement making the corners of his mouth quirk. Regardless of how Kurosaki has grown, he definitely still has his spitfire personality.

"Just listen, alright?" He looks deadly serious now, the aggravated look on his face softening again. "I… I know about… about what you are."

Grimmjow doesn't reply, unsurprised. Figures the kid would've discovered sooner or later. So now what? Is he going to take pity on him? He would've thought Kurosaki would start despising him, seeing as how some Hollows tend to prey on humans, but the brat wouldn't have been so happy to see him if that had been the case.

"So?"

"So, I get why you don't like Shinigami—but Urahara isn't going to do anything to you. All he did was heal you! Though, technically Tessai did that, but you get the point, right? They're not gonna hurt you."

No pity, then. Good. But he's still pissed off.

"They took my fucking sword," Grimmjow hisses, brushing past the kid as anger pulses through his veins. Pantera is an extension of his _soul_—no one is allowed to touch it, regardless of their intentions, and if the Shinigami bastard wanted to get off on the right foot with him, this isn't the way to go about it.

He rips the door open as Kurosaki calls his name again, sounding exasperated, but before he can even think about taking a single step he's startled by the form of a blond man in green clothes, twirling _his _precious Pantera around in a hand as if it were a toy.

Grimmjow's temper explodes.

"_You son of a bitch_!"

He lunges with a feral growl, bandaged hands intending to choke the Shinigami to death when something hard slams into his temple and pins him to the ground, body thrumming with pain at the impact, breath choked out of him. For a moment, the world spins, and bile rises to his throat. He swallows it down with some effort, though he has half a mind to throw up just to ruin the Shinigami's carpet.

Quickly regaining his bearings, he decides to ignore the strain and the nausea, murderous glare directed up to the Shinigami. Then a moment of confusion passes through him when he realizes he's being pinned down to the ground with the end of a cane pressing on his temple, until he feels the reiatsu concentrated inside it. Hiding a Zanpakutō in a cane, huh? Sly piece of shit.

"Now, now, is that any way to greet your savior?" the Shinigami says cheerfully, eyes hidden underneath the shadow of his hat as he continues twirling Pantera around in his other hand for a moment before putting it aside.

"Go fuck yourself_._" Grimmjow spits venomously, the pressure of the cane on his head increasing and making him grit his teeth, the aftermath of his concussion still pounding in his skull.

"I would prefer not to have to tie you up, Grimmjow. It's quite a hassle for me, and young Ichigo here seems to trust you. You would not want to break that trust, would you?" the Shinigami continues merrily, but Grimmjow doesn't miss the warning undertone in those pleasantly-phrased words.

At the mention of the kid he shifts his gaze to the brat standing next to him, noting the facial features twisted into a half-worried, half-angry expression. All this concern from Kurosaki is setting him on edge. Can't the kid just mind his own fucking business?

Grimmjow breathes in deeply through his nostrils and takes a second to think. Considering that he's too injured to fight, the chance of victory or escape is practically zero. And as much as he despises Shinigami, this one seems to have aided him for some reason. Not much of a choice but to go along with it, for now.

"Fine," he grumbles, rolling onto his back and pushing the cane aside. "But I want my sword back."

"Ah-ah-ah," The Shinigami grins, wagging his index finger back and forth. "Not until we've reached an agreement."

"_What _agreement?"

"You used to work for Aizen, did you not?" Grimmjow tenses, eyes narrowing tightly, but he remains quiet. "I'll take that as a yes." The Arrancar pushes himself up off the ground, holding back a grunt as he refuses displaying any weakness in front of the deceptive Shinigami.

"Who's Aizen?" Ichigo asks, glancing from one adult to the other.

"In due time," the Shinigami says, pulling out a fan out of nowhere and wafting air in his face even though the room itself is plenty cold. "First, introductions! My name is Kisuke Urahara, the owner of this lovely shop you've taken temporary residence in, and also a former Shinigami."

"Former?" Grimmjow scoffs, eyebrows arching slightly. "You don't just quit being a Shinigami."

Urahara waves his fan around, as if brushing the comment away. "Semantics; all you need to know is that I no longer work for Soul Society. Furthermore, I believe you and I may share a common goal. But let's take this discussion somewhere more comfortable."

Being ushered out of a room by a 'former' Shinigami dressed as silly as he is feels like a slight to Grimmjow's pride, and he has half a mind to snatch Pantera from the wall and fight his way out, but that would be a _really _stupid idea. Whoever this Urahara guy is, he is powerful. Too much for him to handle at the moment.

He lets himself be lead into a traditionally styled Japanese room, cushions and a low table being all the furniture present with large sliding doors allowing entrance. There are cups of what smells like tea resting on the table, still hot. He sits down, only then realizing someone took his jacket off. Not that it really matters, but the thought of Shinigami, former or not, laying their hands on his property is grinding his gears.

Kurosaki sits down next to him, watching him from the corners of his eyes when he thinks Grimmjow doesn't notice. The Arrancar meets his gaze, but the kid doesn't look away. Instead he scowls at him. He doesn't remember the kid scowling this much before. It's irritating. Something about his gaze is irritating—but intriguing, nonetheless. Kurosaki knows how strong he is, but it doesn't seem to deter him from mouthing off or putting on an attitude. It's a bit amusing, but irksome more than anything else. The kid had better not get any ideas of superiority in his head, or Grimmjow will have to beat it out of him.

Urahara sits down across from them, putting his fan and cane aside, taking a cup and sipping from it leisurely. Sitting with his legs crossed, hands resting on his knees, Grimmjow waits for exactly five seconds until he can feel a vein pop on his forehead as his temper rises once more. Urahara eventually stops sipping from his tea, and as if to infuriate him further, lowers his cup down very, _very _slowly.

"Are you gonna—"

The Shinigami suddenly slams his cup down on the table and Grimmjow reflexively flinches and tenses once more, glowering irately at the amused Shinigami.

"As I said before, we have a common goal. You defected from Aizen's army, didn't you?"

Grimmjow breathes out, muscles relaxing slightly as he leans back, cocking his head slightly to the left. "What's it to you?"

"Though I no longer work for Soul Society, I still have my own reasons for wanting to take Aizen down. You're lucky that I'm the one who found you; any other Shinigami in the area would've executed you on the spot." Urahara takes another quick sip of his tea, his tone now far more serious. "I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt because of Ichigo."

"You related to him, or something?" Grimmjow asks out of curiosity, glancing at the boy who's uncharacteristically quiet beside him.

"No, but I knew his parents, though that is beside the point," Urahara dismisses too quickly, leaving Grimmjow wonder about the kid. Does this mean the kid's parents were Shinigami as well? That doesn't at all explain the edge of darkness in the boy's reiatsu, though. "Four years ago, I kept an eye on the both of you when—"

"You were spying on us?" Grimmjow interrupts brusquely, though he's mostly just bothered by the fact that it went unnoticed. How did he miss that?

"Why, of course!" The Shinigami grins jovially. "It would've been hardly responsible to let a small child visit a possibly hostile being without supervision!"

'_I don't think the supervision was the issue, you lunatic,' _Grimmjow thought, wondering if all Shinigami were this insane.

"Anyhow, from observing you two, I concluded that while you have a truly horrible personality, you're still principled enough not to attack a small, defenseless child."

"The fuck do you mean, horrible personality?"

"Hey, I wasn't small, I was average-sized for my age!"

Urahara laughs at the both of them protesting his statement heatedly, ignoring it entirely as he continues, flipping open his fan and hiding his lower face behind it, his shadow-covered eyes the only thing visible. "To cut things short, I want to make a deal with you."

Grimmjow doesn't like the sound of that, and his instincts tell him that trusting a person this shady is probably a bad idea, but he'll have to at least hear it out before making a judgment. "What deal?"

"Consider it a long-term partnership to, ah, dethrone Aizen, as it were." He likes the sound of that, but before he can even respond, Urahara goes on to list his conditions. "First and foremost, there are some requirements for you to meet before the deal can be made. Number one, you cannot harm any humans during your stay here," Urahara starts, back to his more serious persona. "Number two, you'll have to keep a low profile. That means not attacking any Shinigami, unless they engage you first. And number three, you'll naturally have to hand over any bit of information you have on Aizen to me."

"What makes you so sure I want Aizen gone, anyway?" Grimmjow questions, crossing his arms over his chest. He _does _want Aizen gone more than anything; Shinigami don't belong in Hueco Mundo. That's Hollow turf. Before he can become the king, he needs to get rid of that uppity holier-than-thou asshole.

"Call it a shopkeeper's intuition," Urahara replies nonchalantly, clearly not intent on giving a straight answer.

He ponders the deal, but not for too long. The conditions aren't at all that bad—last time he was here, he avoided humans anyway. They're not worth killing. As far as keeping a low profile, that's fine as well, _for now_. If he is actually going to stay in this place even after his injuries have healed, he's going to need some entertainment, and entertainment always translates to a fight. As far as handing over info goes, that's not a problem. He ain't about to keep that psycho's secrets.

"Deal." he acknowledges gruffly.

"Perfect! Now," Urahara suddenly turns to the boy who's been listening in this whole time. "You look like you want to ask quite a few questions, Ichigo."

Kurosaki glances at Grimmjow, as if checking if it's okay with him, before looking back to the Shinigami. "Yeah, uh, you already told me about Shinigami and Hollows and their worlds and stuff, but you didn't tell me you knew my parents. Were they Shinigami too?" The kid clearly has to control himself to not blurt out a laundry list of questions, chewing on his lip, before adding another one. "And who's this Aizen guy?"

"Your father was indeed a Shinigami, though he lost his powers and was forced to live as a human due to unforeseen circumstances." Urahara confirmed. "As for you mother, she was a Quincy, actually."

Quincy? Grimmjow heard that term before, though he never encountered one personally. Bow and arrows. Thought to be extinct. Huh.

The Shinigami goes on to explain some things to Ichigo about the Quincy and who Aizen is, and though the kid catches on quickly, Urahara's explanations end up still being pretty wordy. Grimmjow tunes him out, disinterested in the topic. Instead he ponders about his situation; it's pretty desperate, but still leaps and bounds ahead of having to serve some megalomaniac. He suspects he's going to be incredibly bored here, but it's better than getting killed by Ulquiorra in Hueco Mundo.

"Can I help?"

Grimmjow looks to the kid sitting next to him with a start, a glance at the Shinigami telling him he's not the only one startled, though he himself didn't keep track of the conversation at all. Kurosaki's eyes seem almost ablaze, the brown smoldering with intensity.

"Ichigo," Urahara begins, all traces of his joker-persona now gone. "I don't think you understand—"

"I understand fine." the brat replies with steady determination. "He's the guy that killed my parents, right?"

Grimmjow's slight frown deepens, looking from one to the other. What the fuck did he just miss? Should've paid more attention.

"It is true that his order to track me down lead to the both of them sacrificing their lives to prevent Aizen from getting to me. " Urahara eventually confirms with a sigh.

The Arrancar looks intently at the Shinigami. "What would Aizen want with you?"

"Nothing much," the shopkeeper admits. "I have a certain item that is of some curiosity to him, but not a priority, and I suspect it was a show of power more than anything else."

The fucker does like to brag, Grimmjow has to agree with that. He refocuses his stare on Kurosaki, and while the boy's face is calm, one glance at his hands tells him otherwise; they're balled into fists, curled into the fabric of the kid's pants and shaking slightly.

"That's all I need to know. I want to help." At being met with silence, Kurosaki loses some of his temper, sensing that he isn't being taken seriously. What could a brat like him possibly do against Aizen, after all? "If my mom was a Quincy, and my dad a Shinigami, then I must have gotten some of their powers, right? Grimmjow told me that I have lotsa reiatsu!"

"And how would you be able to help?" Urahara questions patiently. "You've no knowledge or experience to speak of, let alone—"

"Then train me! You owe my parents, don't you?" Kurosaki snaps, fists slamming on the tables. When the Shinigami opens his mouth again, the brat beats him to it. "I don't care how difficult it's gonna be, I can't let this guy just get away with murdering my family! Whatever it takes, I'll do it!"

He's definitely got guts, and it seems like that characteristic of his has only grown more prominent as the years passed. Grimmjow watches with intense curiosity, thinking of the possibilities. If the kid manages to learn how to control his reiatsu and perhaps even unlock hidden potential, he could make for a truly formidable opponent. The thought is rather enthralling, tickling his battle-crazed side that's practically salivating just from imagining it.

"Are you sure, Ichigo?" Urahara asks quietly, though he need not have. The answer is plainly reflected in that fiery brown gaze. The shopkeeper sighs deeply, before seeming to come to a decision. "I suppose I cannot stop you."

"Great! When do we start?" The boy's eagerness is commendable, at least.

"Not yet. While you do have some reiatsu, most of it is still locked away, if you will, limited by your human body. There are a few methods to unlocking it, some of them rather, er, unorthodox—"

"What's the fastest way?" Kurosaki blurts out.

Grimmjow feels a strange sensation hit him like a sudden breeze as Urahara responds to the kid, a wind sweeping through his head and messing up his thoughts. He sways slightly, blinking and shaking his head. Dizziness.

The motion hasn't gone unnoticed, and while the Shinigami keeps talking to Ichigo, he does glance at Grimmjow while he does so, the Arrancar finding it harder to concentrate.

"There should be a pill on the bedside table in your room. Take it, it'll help you recover faster."

Grimmjow opens his mouth to protest, but his grasp on words is slipping. How fucking hard did Ulquiorra hit him in the head? Sure, he threw the former Sexta through several trees and practically dragged his face over the ground, but… yeah, that's not good.

Instead of offering protest or sneering as he'd be usually inclined to do, Grimmjow silently stands up, ignoring the troubled look he's getting from the brat, and retreats to the room he came from, slamming the door shut behind him (unintentionally, not that it matters). His hand automatically reaches for Pantera's hilt still leaning against the wall next to the door, and feeling the powerful humming of his sword underneath his fingers calms him slightly, as if it is greeting him with a contented purr.

He walks over to the bed, spotting a red pill on the nightstand where he leans his sword again. Should he really just take whatever random drug the Shinigami is offering him? Then again, if he'd wanted to do something to Grimmjow, like dissect him or whatever, he probably would've done it while the Arrancar had been out of it due to his injuries.

Without sparing it another thought, he takes the pill and swallows it down. The effects are almost instantaneous—a buzz of energy pumps to his wounds, akin to the feeling of natural regeneration though the sensation is forced.

Fuck, he's still exhausted, though. The pill does well in helping him heal, but not in helping him replenish the lost energy in his fight with Ulquiorra. Plus, he has a lot to think about now. This new deal with the Shinigami sounded pretty reasonable at the time, but the guy just _screams _untrustworthy, so he'll have to watch his back.

But, maybe he can get something positive out of this. Kurosaki actually learning how to fight properly could prove to be valuable entertainment in the long run. He's not sure he entirely buys the story about his parents just being a Shinigami and a Quincy. It doesn't at all explain the dark touch on the boy's reiatsu that he's certain Urahara picked up on as well. It is incredibly subtle, but plenty noticeable once you get used to sensing it. If Kurosaki actually does end up becoming strong enough for him to fight, _that _would be something to see.

The thought tugs his lips into a slight smirk, though that quickly vanishes at a more depressing realization.

'_No point in mulling about this now,_' he thinks crankily, mood soured when he glances down at his bandaged body. _'Can't do shit when I'm this injured anyway. Better rest up.' _

Lying down on the creaky bed, it takes only mere seconds for him to slip his eyes shut and drift off.

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><p>After three days of sleeping, interrupted only periodically by the shopkeeper giving him another pill to swallow, Grimmjow finds that on the third day, his injuries are all completely gone, not even having left any scars. It surprises him a bit; he'd been half expecting to wake up with half his organs gone or something, but for now, it seems the Shinigami is trustworthy enough.<p>

When it's time to explore the shop, he runs into its other residents. Its tiny, irritating residents.

"Huh, so you're the freeloader the old man dragged in here a few days ago." The one with the obnoxiously bright red hair is easily the biggest nuisance. The girl at least seems rather meek, and doesn't talk much. The boy is just outside the shop while Grimmjow lingers in the doorway, watching him bounce a ball off his knees and feet. He took a minute before to look around the shop itself, but no items present were enough to catch his attention.

"Freeloader?" Grimmjow repeats slowly, eyes narrowing.

"Yeah, free-loa-_der_," the redhead emphasizes, kicking the ball up and head-butting it a few times before letting it drop down to his feet again. "Staying here for free, sleeping for free, taking up space for free—"

Losing interest in the bright red insect that insists on talking to him, Grimmjow turns around and walks away.

"Oi, look at people when they're talking to you!"

The ball shooting towards the back of his head is easily caught between his fingers. He glances over his shoulder to the brat, and with a quick squeeze, the ball in his hand bursts, deflating miserably as he throws it on the ground. The redhead's face is horror-struck.

"You bastard! That was my favorite—"

The girl that has been standing on the sidelines hurriedly tugs his elbow, probably sensing Grimmjow's increasing annoyance. "Let's go clean up the shed."

"But he just—hey, lemme go, Ururu!" The boy is dragged away, cussing up a storm as the Arrancar watches.

At least one of those two has a brain.

"I see you've met the kids." the airy voice of the shopkeeper sounds behind him, and Grimmjow turns around, seeing him standing in the middle of the shop with the fan once more covering the lower half of his face.

"They yours?" Grimmjow asks, hands slipping into the pockets of his hakama. "Annoying little shits." He can practically imagine the grin the Shinigami is hiding behind the fan, and it does nothing to help his mood along. He feels sore from having been lying in bed for so long, and he's dying for some exercise, until another thought occurs to him. "Where's the other kid?"

"Other kid?" Urahara pretends to be puzzled, before a light-bulb flicks on above his head. "Ah, you mean Ichigo! He is undergoing some training."

At this, the Arrancar's interest is piqued. "Show me." he demands, no longer the least bit inhibited with his responses with his now healed up body and Pantera strapped to his side, secure.

"Follow the leader!" the Shinigami says cheerily, and while Grimmjow has some reservations about that, he's too curious _not _to follow either. And his curiosity is rewarded with… even more questions.

How the fuck did you hide a basement _that _huge underneath a shop? The rocky terrain would definitely do for a great place to practice or to spar, but the sheer size of it is ridiculous.

Not to mention the screaming. He wonders how Urahara managed to get a Hollow down here—must be what the kid is fighting against, right? Its presence is unmistakable.

As Grimmjow continues to descend the ridiculously long ladder, he starts noticing something off. While the reiatsu of the Hollow is like a beacon down here, he can't get a fix on Kurosaki. The more he goes down the stronger the feeling gets. Where is he?

Now he peers out over the training ground once more, he can't see any sign of activity either. Forgoing the ladder altogether, having only descended halfway, he jumps down the rest of the way, falling down past Urahara and heading towards the source of the Hollow reiatsu. Maneuvering around the rocks, he finds a direct pathway to where the Hollow is.

But all he sees is a hole, dark reiatsu pulsing out of it like a fountain.

Glancing over his shoulder, he notices the Shinigami approaching, but he doesn't care to wait for him to give an explanation. Is the kid in that hole, fighting the Hollow? Is that why he couldn't sense his presence, because he was so close to the Hollow?

Approaching the edge, he peers down into the darkness.

Now, Grimmjow is not a guy easily shocked. He's seen his share of pretty gruesome stuff, desensitized even to the worst of it by now, but some things can still throw him off his guard. Some things are so strange, so _unnatural_, that even the most hardened Arrancar would need a double-take.

"What the_ fuck_?"

Seeing Ichigo Kurosaki, arms bound behind his back in his soul form, well on his way to transforming into a Hollow as inhuman shrieks tear from his throat, is undoubtedly one of those things.


End file.
